


Through Imperial Lies

by i_found_a_spoon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kallus POV, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Xenophobia, canon-typical genocide, general military abuse, trying to be as canon as possible but I can really only read so much wookiepedia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 72,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25114987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_found_a_spoon/pseuds/i_found_a_spoon
Summary: Alexsandr Kallus was shaped by the contradictions of the wars around him. The Clone War raged as he was accepted into the Royal Academy of the Republic, but served to bring peace to the galaxy as the new Imperial system was formed. Kallus will face the freedom of the Empire’s new slavery, and bring light to the ignorance that serves as the Empire’s strength. The force works in mysterious ways, and soon, Kallus will confront what he has been shaped into.Follows Agent Kallus from cadet to young ISB agent, to Onderon, Lasan, Lothal, and beyond.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus & CT-7567 | Rex, Alexsandr Kallus & Hera Syndulla, Alexsandr Kallus & Wullf Yularen, Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Alexsandr Kallus/Jovan Vharing
Comments: 67
Kudos: 110





	1. The Test

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be posting updates every weekday, hope y'all enjoy this half as much as I enjoyed writing it 😊
> 
> (psst. if you're just here for like, a 15k kalluzeb slow burn you can head over to chapter 23 and go from there. love y'all)

The exam practitioner smiled. "You'll have one hour to complete this portion of the test. No further time will be given, under any circumstances." Five blank faces stared back at her, voice echoing in the classroom.

She paused for a moment to glance down further at the instruction packet. "I suppose you're all sick of studying for the tests. Well, the good news is that after today, you'll be free from that sort of worry." There was something almost human in the statement. It was a lie, of course, that they would be free after this. But since teachers always had the habit of false promises of that sort, Alexsandr could always count on the opposite. Sometimes, lies were more dependable than the truth. Students shifted in their seats, readying their datapads.

The practitioner turned to the timer set on the table, and added another hour to its face.

The admission test was practically over. Alex tried to imagine his life without the pressing need to study. I won't feel the anxiety overwhelming me in my courses. I won't feel bad for trying to ignore the war effort.

Father won't hate me anymore. I'll come home and tell him that I've gotten the stupid admission test out of the way, and that I won't go off fighting some war that we never had say in to begin with. He'll forgive me for my classes and maybe he will include me in his secret calls and protests in the night. They'd be -  
Well, not friends, probably. No, father was too dangerous. Father got so angry. He'd finally be his son though, not enemies, not friends, but at least related. Able to live in the same house. When he has his chances he'll just leave me alone. And when he questions me at the dinner table about the politics of the Republic I won't have to answer. I'll just go read a book.

But Alex knew, even as he thought it, that his father wouldn't leave him alone. He'd lived too long to know his father, former senator and all. There was something that burned deep in his eyes that had sparked long ago. His father called it "reform" and "justice", but Alex knew it was something different. He saw it as a deep seated desire for change to their system, but there was an unwilling force to deal with. The lumbering mechanisms of the Republic government were slow and clunky. Real change only came from violence. And it seemed that the violence of the Clone War only pushed his father faster towards a lack of control. He knew that the one thing his father could not do was leave him alone.

I'm recording a message for the protests against the Jedi later, he'd say. Come hold the holo lens. Oh, but is the star Republic student too busy to assist? Too good to help his own father? Is he too smart? No, no. I don't require your help. Go blast some droids, Cadet Kallus.

"This is your answer sheet. This is the test. Do not write on the test, only your answer sheet will be counted." Alex nodded. "Do not flip either over until we say so."  
Alex looked over the back of the datapad, trying to read the first question through the clear backing.

"You may begin."

The last noise of the hour began with a rustling of the test being flipped over. With luck, Alex would fail.

___

He got back to his classroom only fifteen minutes before the closing bell. He was done. It was over.

"Are you alright Alexsandr?" asked the teacher.

He nodded.

"Are you ill?"

He shook his head.

"You don't look well."

"I'm okay."

"You'd better sit down Alexsandr."

He looked towards his seat, but stopped. He was finished with this school. This would be the last time he sat down here.

"Your seat is over there," stated the teacher. Yes, that much was obvious.

He sat down, a bit dizzy from the mental exertion. He'd recover when he got home.

"You took the test," whispered the girl behind him.

Alex shrugged.

"What was on it?" She leaned closer.

He couldn't remember. In that regard, he was just like everyone else.

"Washed out, bantha brains?" asked a boy who sat in the row in front of him. Couldn't think of his name. Kallus? No, that was someone else.

"Quiet, Mr. Anton." said the instructor. Anton smirked.

She talked about starships and hyperdrive equations. Alex doodled on his holopad, drawing contour maps of islands and telling the program to display them in three dimensions from every angle. The teacher would know, of course. She was wired to every school holopad he could possibly have his hands on. But today, she wouldn't care. His answers were no longer being monitored to see if he was ready to be tested. He was both within and outside of this class. He busied himself with the topographic activity until the end of class, when the final bell rang out. Everyone signed off their pads or hurriedly typed in reminders to themselves. Some dumped lessons into their home data for later reference. To study. He closed his drawings, taking a last look at the fine lines he had created to give the place life. He played around with lines often. It gave him something to do while the teacher droned on about orbital mechanics. Orbital mechanics! Mother had taught him orbital mechanics when he was seven.

"Are you alright Alexsandr?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You'll miss your speeder."

Alex nodded and got up. The other kids were gone. They would be waiting though, Anton's crew. They always were. And with the test taken and done, no one would care about him anymore. He was just another student, no longer a Royal Academy prospect as they all hoped to be.

Alex stood and exited the classroom, leaving everything behind in place. A group had gathered near the hallway's exit.

It was Anton, of course. He wasn't bigger than most other kids, but he was bigger than Alexsandr. And he had the others with him. He always did.

"Hey Kallus."

Don't answer. Nothing to say.

"Hey, Kallus, we're talking to you. Kallus, hey bantha-fudu, we're talking to you."

Can't think of anything to answer. Anything I say will make it worse. But then again, so will nothing.

"Hey Senator Kallus, Hutt lover, you flunked out huh? Always thought you were better than us but you lost."

"Are you going to let me through?" Alex asked.

"Are we going to let him through? Should we let him through?" They all laughed. "Sure we'll let you through. First a piece of your arm, maybe a knee after that."  
The others chimed in. They began pushing him across the hallway.

This would not have a happy ending. So Alex sighed, and decided that he'd rather not be the most unhappy in the end. The next time Anton's arm came out to push him, Alex grabbed it. He missed.

"Oh look at you Kallus, pacifist extraordinaire, gonna fight me huh?"

The people behind Alex grabbed him, holding his arms in place. He laughed a bit as a strand of hair fell into his face. "You mean it takes this many people to fight me off? Really, I hope for your sake you don't have anyone that supports the war effort in these times."

"Is that supposed to be a threat? What's your place to make threats against the good old Jedi Order? They've brought us peace and calm to a raging world." Anton elbowed him across the face. "But anyone who thinks the Jedi aren't our big kriffing angelic saviors is our enemy" He shifted, and the people holding him let Alex go. "Isn't that right, Kallus."

Just as the kids behind him released his arms, Alex brought his knee upwards towards Anton's chin. He dropped. It took Alex by surprise, he hadn't thought that he'd bring Anton down with one kick. It didn't occur to him that Anton might not take a fight like this seriously. That he wasn't prepared for a truly desperate blow.  
For a moment, the crowd ebbed as Anton lay on the floor, unmoving. Alex, however, was in motion. He needed to keep them from ganging up again. He needed to win this fight, and prevent vengeance have to win this now, for all time, or I'll keep fighting them every day.

Alex knew the rules of warfare. With each day the Clone Wars raged on, it was impossible not to hear the rules that the Jedi broke, time and time again. It was forbidden to strike the opponent that lay supine on the ground. Only an animal would do that. He walked over to Anton's body, and kicked him again in the ribs. Turning back, again to the head.

"You may think you have some idea of ganging up on me," he'd turned his gaze to the gang that surrounded him. Tears streamed from Anton's eyes. "You could probably beat me up real bad. But this," He kicked Anton again, "This is what I do to people that hurt me." Blood spattered from Anton's nose onto the hallway floor.  
He turned and walked away. Nobody followed. He could hear voices behind him, but he wouldn't listen.

Take away my ambitions and I am a killer. Pacifism doesn't run in our family at all. Look at me. Look at my hands. Father would be so disappointed. Finally given the opportunity to test out and all I am is violence.


	2. Yularen

"I'm sorry Alex," his mother said as he set down his holopad from school. She knew it had been a test day. She assumed he hadn't been chosen to take it, again.  
"I took it." he said blankly. "The test, they gave it to me this time." He looked at her inquisitively. "They didn't tell you?" Her face fell, obviously they had not.  
"Do you remember - " she started tentatively.

"Nothing. I don't remember anything on it. Just like everyone else." I'm nothing special, Alex wanted to say to her. They won't take me and you and father will finally be at peace. No more arguments about what war we're really fighting. Mother took his crestfallen expression for disappointment, and brought him into a hug.  
"If there's anything I can do for you," She seemed to mean more by the expression. Alex looked away.

"I'll be in my room," he said curtly.

"Alright," mother said. "Dinner will be ready whenever you are."

As if Alex would ever be ready for what dinner held for him.

Why didn't you take a stand Alexsandr? Why didn't you opt not to take the test? Are you just another cog in their system? Alex's thoughts ran rampant as he climbed the stairs to his room.

But I did take a stand father. I stood up to our class gang leader today. I beat him until he bled from his nose and his eyes were closed with tears. Is that not what you want for me father? Is that not who you've raised me to be? Am I not the scourge of this universe that you would like to seek out and destroy?

The galaxy would be so much better run if there were peace. If there were one, unifying system. There were too many factions, all holed up in backwater worlds. The Separatists had come from one, Alex was sure, but the Republic had handled the situation all wrong. The war was wrong. The galaxy was ready for peace once again.  
Alex stood in his bedroom door, wandering over to the bed. He sat on the edge, shrugging off his school uniform. He wouldn't need it anymore. He absentmindedly wondered where he'd be assigned to in the coming weeks. They could throw him anywhere for all he cared.

The school he had attended for so many years fed into a number of academies, but most notably, the Royal Academy of the Republic, a shiny new haven for the militant citizens among them. That's where everyone wanted to end up. The test showed your aptitude for success there, and if you passed, you'd be the lucky one or two students to enroll and then eventually, drop out. It wasn't the life Alex wanted, but there was a certain aura to it that drew him in. Directly disobeying everything father stood for. No contact with his relatives for four whole years. He wondered if he could do it. No, he couldn't leave mother behind to fight his own war.  
And of course, he wouldn't get it, he told himself. He'd more likely be sent to the spice mines of Kessel than anywhere near a high ranking military facility.  
Model starships stared down at him from his ceiling. One day he promised, one day he'd fly in one.

Alex came down to dinner shortly after. He was vaguely disappointed not to see father there, but only because he had winning arguments play out in his brain all through the silent evening. The holonets played in the background as he ate, with news of more planets joining the Republic, and Jedi victories all over the galaxy.  
"After the war is over, the only controlling force in this galaxy should be the Republic." Alex and his mother turned to the doorway to their house. Alex's father stood there, tinged by the waning light of day. "Only then," he continued, "will we be able to prevent all future wars."

"Does that not make the Clone War justifiable then? Peace, through any means needed?" Mother retaliated. Father's expression turned dark.  
"Why don't we ask our young officer here what he thinks?" He turned to Alex.

Alex stiffened. He could feel his father's resentment breathing on him.

Alex knew the war was wrong. He at least agreed with his father on that point. But he also saw it as a necessity. If there were systems that opposed the Republic, how could there be peace? There would always be some disagreement between them; they would always be enemies.

Without turning to look at him, Alex let his anger flow into his words.

"You saw the blood on my boots today father. You paused for too long at the doormat. Did you wonder where it came from? Did wonder if the poor soul that it'd come from earned what I did to him?" Alex paused to try to gauge his father's reaction. "The war justifies its existence by saying it ends all future wars. I agree with it; no one will want to fight after this. Our Republic will enable peace through the galaxy in a way that the peacekeeper Jedi never have been able to achieve."

The dining room turned quiet, as it mulled over Alexsandr's outburst.

"I shouldn't have expected you to understand." He turned to the other side of the table so that Alex could see him clearly. "You will never know peace in your lifetime." It was a verbal slap to the face. With that, father briskly strode back to his study, presumably to organize and take calls from whatever organization he was in charge of today.

"You can't mean you oppose the war on humanitarian grounds."Alex's mother looked up at him, as if to apologize. Alex shrugged it off. As far as he was concerned, he had won that argument. He decided to push his luck.

"I took the test today, Father." Alex called back to him. His father paused in the doorway. "I won't be an officer in the Republic's great mechanism anyways."  
Father turned back into the light of the dining room, his face expressionless. He looked down.

"Congratulations." His voice trailed off, in thought. Was that? Disappointment?

As if on cue, their front doorbell buzzed, signaling an unexpected visitor. Alex's father disappeared without a glance into his study. He was afraid.

I am afraid. Alex's thoughts swirled. Who would come to call on their family at this hour? Surely they hadn't come for his father, after he had spent so many hours to cover his tracks when leading the protests? It wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Alex tried to imagine the future without his father. They'd take him away for treason to the Republic, lock him in one of those cells deep in the underbelly of Coruscant. Alex would never see him again. He winced at the thought. His mother moved to open the door.

Through the dark night of the outside, a darker form appeared.

"Is this the Kallus residence?" A curt voice came from the form. So they were here for father.

Mother sensed it too. "Are you perhaps looking for a Calhoon? Kalleen? They live a few doors down."

The shadow stumbled with words.

"No, no, I have specific orders to speak with an Alexsandr Kallus at this address, is he here?"

Mother paused for a second. They were here for him. They'd found out about Anton and now they're here to arrest me. They're here for me, not father. The cold-blooded bully who actually did something, not the coward that sits in his office. It's me who will end up in the underbelly.

Mother nodded. "He is here."

"May I come in?"

"I don't think I have much of a choice do I?"

"Sadly ma'am, I'm not sure you do."

The form emerged from the doorway, and strode over to the dinner table. He didn't know its history. He didn't know the debates and struggles Alex had in this very spot.

The form turned out to be a man large enough to fit through the door, frame heavy-set and eyes piercing. He wore the gray garb of a military officer, adorned with enough blue and red squares to indicate a high level of respect. Alex reminded himself that this man expected him to be afraid, this man expected him to praise his actions. But he was better than a Jedi. He had the drive of a soldier, not a peacekeeper.

"Alexsandr, hello. Wonderful to meet you." Was it?

"My name is Admiral Yularen, with the Grand Navy of the Republic. I'm here to offer you a position in the Royal Academy."

Alex was stunned. No one passed the entrance test anymore. No one he'd even heard of off-world.

"What do you mean? That's not, that's not even possible."

Yularen let out a laugh.

"Impossible? Here I was expecting to be met with joy and exuberance. You passed, Alexsandr."

It was mother's turn to protest.

"You mean to take him away, don't you?" There was something else hanging in that. A danger.

Yularen sighed. "Alexsandr, may I speak to you outside?"

No, thought Alex. I will not speak to you without mother here.

"Of course." Mother answered for him.

Yularen stood from the table. Alex took longer to stand, focusing on his grip on the table for a bit too long. He allowed himself to be led outside.

Yularen took the prerogative to open and close the door behind them.

"I don't really have a choice in this matter do I?" Alex said plainly, looking out from the balcony into Coruscant's evening.

"Would it matter?" Yularen leaned against the frame of Alex's house.

Alex pondered the quandary. In theory of course, it would matter. It would matter to his father. If he'd had the choice, he couldn't go. He knew that. He would never be able to come home. It wasn't his decision.

"Yes." Alex whispered.

"Would it matter, to you?" Yularen added on. "I can't force you to do anything, Alex."

That was the response Alex didn't want. He couldn't let his own feelings get in the way of this decision, it would be selfish. He couldn't allow his father to see him as a war-mongrel. It wasn't him.

But, on the other hand. The Republic Navy. He'd be able to get off Coruscant. See the galaxy. He'd never come home again. Never have to face father at the dinner table.

Would they be willing to give him up? Would they miss him?

"Will I…" Alex pondered how to sum up his feelings lightly. "Will I be able to see my family again?"  
Yularen sighed.

"They won't miss you Alexsandr. They've got things they need to attend to, your father in particular. I won't act like we don't know who he is." Of course they knew. Why wouldn't they? Republic spies all over the place.

"You won't tell him though, of course. I know." Yularen paused, treading lighter around the point than Alex wanted.

"When you're gone, they'll start over. They can try again with a different child, one who doesn't talk of the opposition to your father's… business."  
Alex knew what was coming.

"Of course." He tried to nod, but found he was frozen in the spot. How dare this admiral come to his house and tell him everything he'd had to hide? Alex didn't cry often, but found suddenly that tears were welling in his eyes. He was the problem. He was the issue here. He needed to leave.

"Does that settle this for you, Cadet ?" Yularen stared off into the night. Alex looked back at him.

"Of course sir. I'll come with you." Yularen was pleased, and motioned back into the house.

"Just, one more thing sir. I want to know why I passed." Yularen turned back to him.

"Alex, the test isn't the written portion. Nor the studying. It's what you do after. It's what you become when you know you've failed."

Of course no one passed then. No one else Alex knew was a killer like him.

___  
Mother cried. Father just stood in the doorway of his study, looking at him. He was, of course, disappointed, but Alex knew that he would find peace. The house would find peace without him in it.

Yularen set Alex up with a transport ticket and uniform set to leave early in the morning.

"You won't need to pack your things. Everything you will need will be provided once you're at the academy." He left without so much as a goodbye.  
That night, Alex dreamed of Anton's eyes as he kicked him on the ground.


	3. Flight

The early morning light hit Alex's room softly. He hadn't slept well in fear of missing his alarm, so the early time didn't bother him. No one was awake in his house as he quietly slipped out of his room. At the door, he looked back. The orange light made the house look like something out of an old spacer's tale, not a prison that it was for Alex. This was how he wanted to remember the space. This light, these chairs. This door. He opened it and left his home world behind.

The uniform Yularen had given him fit baggy around his thighs, and brushed weirdly across his legs when he walked. The uniform also attracted the attention of other, more unsavory viewers. Large, inhuman aliens sat in corners, fangs protruding out of their mouth. Their business was their business, but Alex found it disgusting. Even the light of morning couldn't make Coruscant's inhabitants look better. He knew that the uniform showed he could hurt them if they looked at him the wrong way. And they were right, Alex thought. He now wore the clothes of a killer. Is this why father thought the war should end? Because these people can't help but look at me with fear? They don't even know that this is just a façade. It soon wouldn't be though, of course. He would be trained. He would learn what he needed to. And one day, that fear would have its place.

Was that what Alex wanted? Who knows. Least of all him.

He approached the transport docks with apprehension. He hadn't traveled much in general, least to the great capital regions of the world. He held out his commlink with the ticket to the droid at the counter. It blinked green and chirped out a robotic proceed.

Engines rumbled all across the yard. Shipments were being unloaded. The ruckus of the day had already started with the sun. Tunnels lead through the compound to various stations - Alex's ticket had a marked seventeen written on it, so that was what he began to search for. People and aliens of all walks of life passed by him. Alex took some time to marvel at a few real clone troopers passing by, inspecting various goods. Recognizing that he'd grow used to the sight, he continued, not taking too much time away from his main goal.

The bustle of the hub grew as he carried on. The early morning was waning into the regular commute time, and people seemed to appear just from the walls. Alex was a stranger in a crowd of locals.

Luckily, bay seventeen was close. He passed by the open hanger of sixteen to catch a glimpse of a real starship. More of an old stack of crates held together than anything, but there it was. That had been to space. To other planets. It was the future that he held himself. He rounded the corner to bay seventeen. There weren't many people around this one, and he was early, so he took a seat on a nearby crate, and watched the empty hanger.

I should be in school right now. I should be pretending to learn calculus and drawing maps, but instead I am here. A part of Alex wondered if the whole thing was a set up. He could just leave. Completely run away from every life path he'd set up for himself till now.

Alex lived in the future tense. Everything he thought about was for his future self. Every test he studied for, every person he'd beat to the ground. He pondered what he could do now that his future was completely uncertain.

The flow of the crowd shifted as someone started to part the throngs of people towards him. Another cadet? It looked like it was enough. Short, young, and he looked horribly out of place. Yes, Alex thought, another denizen of bay seventeen.

The average age of a Royal Academy recruit was sixteen, give or take a few hundred years for the species. Alex barely fit the age requirement, bordering seventeen himself, and the man approaching him looked slightly older. He parted the crowd with an ease that connoted his experience with these kinds of areas, unlike Alex's unwieldy venture had gone.

So he was used to the crowds. Or he was used to space travel.

Alex stood to meet the newcomer.

"Do you have any idea how late we're going to be? Transport was supposed to arrive five minutes ago." The cadet turned to face Alex. "Can't look good for a first impression."

He was right, but it wasn't anything that they could help. Alex had figured the military just didn't have time for the 'picking up new recruits' sort of operation.  
"It's not like we're a top priority to them," he stated plainly, trying to get a sense of the other boy's position.

He raised his eyebrows in mock disbelief. "And why shouldn't we be? We're the future of this war."

His voice spoke with an air of power. Alex almost laughed at his over the top Coruscanti accent.

"I'll have to go get a dock attendant if this continues. I can't possibly wait any longer."

Well, thought Alex, you have only been here for ten seconds at most. I'll bet you can't take much longer.

"It's Jovan by the way. My name. I'd expect you to learn it by the time I get back from my complaints."

Jovan certainly had the military air about him already. The heels of his boots clicked as he turned.

"I assume you're Kallus?" He ventured, looking over his shoulder.

"Alexsandr Kallus, yes. You can call me Alex. Please." He tried to make it sound as formal as possible.

"Alexsandr, well, that won't be your name for long. Military protocol and all of course. But I'll take it." Jovan smiled, and clicked his way back into the crowd.

So this was what Alex was preparing for. A life full of stuck up Coruscantis with a penchance to believe the world owed them something.

Jovan was right about one thing, however. He was going to have to get used to going by his father's name from now on.

After a few more minutes of waiting, a shadow passed over the hanger. A dropship slowly descended into the hollowed out platform, as if hanging by a thread. Smoke billowed from one of the rear wings. Alex saw the disbalance, and backed away from the landing pad, just as a group of clones ran in, carrying fire hoses. The party on the heavy bellied dropship sprung out of the open door, and onto the platform as the pilot landed, and the fire crew rushed to put it out.

Alex stood back, taking in the chaos. A familiar face emerged from the smoke, alongside two clone troopers.

"Admiral Yularen!" He exclaimed. So he would have a friend here. Well, if he could call him that. He was, probably, at most, someone he would know. That was probably enough.

"Cadet Kallus." Yularen stated curtly. "Thank you for being on time today. I apologize for the state of the ship."

"As you should!" A voice from behind them rang out. Jovan. Of course. "You expect me to board that thing now that it's been shot out of the sky? Come in flaming onto the platform?"

Alex flicked his ears back. Shot out of the sky? Is that why they had so much damage? Who could've done that?

"Yes..." Yularen answered. "It appears you are Cadet Jovan aren't you?"

Jovan nodded, obviously pleased.

"Your foolish reputation precedes you. I need you to remember that there's a reason our little school has such a high... Dropout rate. Would hate to see you become a statistic." The ice in his voice was apparent.

"Now see here, why aren't you more like young Cadet Kallus here? On time, ready to go," he lowered his voice, "and respectful?"

This wasn't right, Alex thought. Yularen was supposed to berate both of them, not paint him as a hero. It would make Jovan hate him, not bring them together. Could that possibly be the point?

Jovan huffed a sigh of disapproval at him, and walked towards the ship. The troops followed him, and turned towards the now less-smoking ship.  
"Why did you do that, sir?" Alex asked.

"Do what?"

"You're turning us against each other."

"Well, we can't be letting our students get in with the wrong type of people, can we?"

The question hung in the air.

"Of course sir."

Alex knew he'd be isolated up here, but the extent was vaster than he predicted. The pair turned to walk towards the dropship.

"Sir, may I ask one more question?"

"You may ask, of course."

"Who was responsible for shooting down the ship?" There was genuine curiosity in his voice.

"You mean you don't already know? Think about it _Kallus_."

Alex got his meaning then. Of course it wasn't an enemy of the Republic. It was just its least loyal citizen. His name now.

Alex stepped into the dropship, minding the gap, and grabbing one of the tethers to the ceiling. He steadied himself as it rose, high into the sky. Much higher than he'd ever been before. As they rose with the day's sun, he caught a glimpse of a dark spot below, kneeling on the roof of the hanger bay. Blaster shots rang through the air past them, trying to land the aircraft before it could even begin its journey. Alex knew it was his father. More than anything. He knew his father would try to stop him, even if it killed Alex in the process. Peace by any means necessary. But not war.

Alex vowed then that he would not become his father. The ideal of peace was an ideal itself, the war was what the galaxy needed. There is no peace without chaos, and he would be the chaos beneath the wings of the Republic.


	4. Quad Two

The Royal Academy of Coruscant was a huge complex among huge complexes. Alex had never been to this area of the world, and it was just as grand as the stories foretold. Jovan stood next to him, pointing out all the buildings as they completed their flyover.  
"You see that building over there? Shaped like half a mudhorn's egg? That's the Senate building. Senators from all the planets, all over the galaxy come there to debate about everything." And to create wars, Alex added. That's where they decide where peace will be.

"You see the building with the four pillars over there Alex?" Jovan pointed to a building adjacent to the Senate complex.

"That's the Jedi Temple. They're right there Alex." The traitors. Right there. Alex had never even seen a Jedi. He knew that their main base was located in his home world, sure, but he never thought he'd get far enough around to actually see it.  
Coruscant was much more alive in the capital regions. More speeders flew around here than he'd seen in the rush hour traffic by his home. People and aliens everywhere were all going somewhere, doing something important. The city breathed a certain life, and everyone knew what hand they took in it.

Jovan elbowed him again.

"You see that down there?" He pointed aimlessly. "That's where we're going."

Alex peered over the dropship's main door. A wide complex of gray stone peered out beneath them. It had a great main entrance, adorned with pillars of clone troopers. Hallways spiraled up and into the upper floors. It would've looked promising if the appearance wasn't so grim. The red flags of the Republic swung around gracefully with the wind. The main walk to the complex was crawling. Although this was mainly a place of learning, it was still very much an active war zone. Battalions marched onto dropships just like theirs to be carried to starships up above.

That's where I'm going. Alex looked upwards towards the great republic cruisers above in awe. They were like great living cities, pointed arrows with so many different lives to live aboard. It was all going to be his. He closed his eyes and took a breath. And then, for the first time in a long time, Alexsandr smiled.

"We're going to start our landing approach, sir" a voice echoed from the cockpit.  
The ship swiveled, and the wind met Alex's face lightly, blowing his blond hair across his face. He felt the shift in gravity as the ship grew closer to the surface. Yularen gestured to the two boys to gather closer to the edge, and when they were about a foot from the ground, he jumped off. Alex and Jovan did likewise.

Yularen led them across the huge compound. Alex noted that while it had seemed small from the air, the sheer size of the compound had eluded him. The dropship took off again, presumably to either pick someone up or go get itself fixed.

Jovan and Alex flanked the admiral as he walked, troops around them pausing to salute the trio. Or maybe, they were saluting the admiral only. Alex didn't think that Jovan or him deserved much of a salute, but the whole experience was breathtaking.

He'd seen vids of cadets walking into battle with clones, their bravery to be upheld and cherished. Would mother be able to see his walk now? She would be proud of him. She would know he was safe.

Safety will never come to you at the hands of those trained for violence, said father, whispering in the back of his head. Alex pushed back. You have never known safety because you choose to put violence against violence.

The wide area led to a set of hangar doors, filled with every ship Alex could think of and more. Dropships, Y-Wings, Jedi Starfighters, even some he didn't know the name of with vertical, flatter wings. It was truly a sight to behold. Even Jovan seemed speechless, for once. Orders bellowed through the open hanger. Alex couldn't translate them into normal codes but they seemed to make sense to those they applied to. They strode through the bay following the admiral's experienced path, and stopped just short of a door at the back.

"Your commlink should guide your directions to hall oh-six dash seven. Don't make a fuss of yourself getting there." Yularen slid a code cylinder into the slot on the door. "I have things to attend to. Good luck cadets."

So much for having a friend here. Alex's comm lit up with an indicator light, swiveling around a circle to indicate direction. A left here, a right. Avoid a mouse droid or two. Right again. Straight on. This was a complete maze. To the advantage of the defender in an attack situation, Alex noted. I would be lost in here without these sorts of directions.  
Noticing a large space ahead, he pulled in front of Jovan.

"There it is," he stated, turning his walk into a brisk trot.

Jovan reached out to grab the fabric on his sleeves.

"You are not getting there ahead of me this time, Alex." His voice held the resentment of Yularen's choice words from before. Alex stumbled over his feet, trailing behind.  
The hallway opened up with a turn. White light washed around bunks held high within the walls of the building. There was a group of about twenty kids gathered at the end of the hallway, showing no apparent organization. Jovan, who had gotten to the group by now, made haste introducing himself.

Alex on the other hand, stayed back. He waited for the edges of the group to approach him. He made some mental notes. All of the cadets were humanoid. Something to do with bonding with the clones, or, as Alex thought, consistency within a system. They all had different accents though, telling him that they came from all over the galaxy. He snickered as one asked Jovan to repeat a sentence from his snobbish intonations into common.

"Atten-tion! Officer on deck!" All of the chatter ceased at once, and the group grew more tense. Some of the ones with more militant sensibilities put up a small salute, while others still looked slouched.

The voice had come from behind the door where Alex and Jovan had entered. With an astute pace, a clone trooper, dressed in similar uniform to the gray tunics they all wore rounded the corner, and made his way across the room.

"Cadets. You are all sloppy looking. Straighten your backs! Legs together! And salute your superior officer." He paused. "And I'd expect a good 'yes sir' when I give you something to do, cadets."

The group shuffled into a stiffer group, saluting the clone. Murmurs of "yessir" tried to get across to him.

"Ah, alright then. My name's CT-0861, but you can call me Pad. And I'll be your mom for the next few months."

A few snickers ran through the crowd.

"Any problems you've got I'll try to head up, you get lost tell them Pad's your mom and they'll light your commlink up back here."

Pad looked down at his wrist and tapped his commlink.

"You'll be assigned bunks here. Get to know who you're sleeping with, but don't get too into it." He tilted his head at more snickers.

"Your quad here is your family. No, you won't get to choose, and no, there will be no transfers. You will eat, live, and breathe by your quad. And eventually, you'll fight by them."

A slight whirr of excitement from the crowd. So they were fighters, like me. Who did they beat up to get in here? What do they look like in failure?

Alex took solace that his father would never make it here. He would have spoken out, gotten kicked out before the dropship even touched down. He smirked. Pad continued.  
"We will have a tour of the facilities at 1500. Do not wander around until then, you will get lost and it's far too early for that. Please, see to it that none of you are late. Until then, all of you are dismissed."

Pad turned and left the room, leaving the twenty new recruits to their own devices. They stood around for a second, before all their comms beeped in unison. Bunking assignments. Quad assignments. My new family. Couldn't be much worse than his old one. His old one? At what point had he removed himself completely from his life? Was it not still his? He shook his head. Bunk number 021. That much was manageable. He joined the throng reading numbers on bunks, soon discovering the pattern that he was bunk nber oh-two, spot number one. He ventured over to the close side of the room, turning into the onset area of bunk two.

Jovan. Fantastic.

He didn't seem to be pleased either.

"Seriously? They stuck me with some bottom feeder scum?" Jovan made his way over, crossing his arms.

"I should've just left you on the platform, Jovan." Alex hissed.

A girl, taller than both of them walked over to them, pushing herself between them.  
"Boys, boys, looks like you're already acquainted. That'll be wonderful for our group chemistry I'm quite sure." She stared cold daggers into both of their eyes.

"I'm Saabe Lee." She stuck her hand out to the boys.

"Jovan."

"Alex."

"Looks like I'm right on time!" A voice from the front of the inlet echoed. "I'm Cordin." Cordin looked strikingly out of place. Their electric blue hair clashed greatly with the drab grays and whites of the room. And they had this air about them. This air of rebellion. Alex didn't like it. 

It reminded him of father. He clenched his teeth.

"Pleasured to make all of your acquaintances," shrugged Alex politely. A bit pointedly at Jovan. The other boy smirked at him.

He turned to his marked space, front bunk left of the door. Cordin took the one behind him, Lee diagonal, and of course Jovan was right next to him. Wonderful. His bunk was raised off the ground over a desk with a locker next to it. He tugged open the locker, surprised it didn't seem to resist much. What was the point of a locker if it didn't lock?  
Inside were two other gray uniforms just like the one he already wore, and a set of armor below. A datapad sat at the very top. Alex knelt down to touch the hard plastic on the exterior. On the door, there was a shelf that had a round pen-like object on it.  
My own code cylinder, so that I can get into the places I'm permitted. Alex took the cylinder from its place of rest and put it into the small breast pocket on his left side. Across the room, Lee seemed to yelp with excitement. Alex peaked out.

"You guys, check this one out." She held a small blaster in her hands.

"Where in the blazes did you get that?" Jovan exclaimed.

"Bottom shelf sarlacc-brains!"

Alex followed Jovan's suit, and pulled a blaster from the bottom shelf, under where the armor was stored. He'd never been able to see one up close, nor even hold one. His grip was unsteady as his fingers passed over the cold metal. He quickly put the weapon back, and grabbed the datapad. He poked around at applications, finally settling on one that would allow him to write to his family. He crawled up into his bunk and began to write his mother a letter.


	5. Drexl

"Officer on deck!"

"Yes sir!"

The practiced platoon came to a halt in front of Pad. It had been three months since their first arrival, and they acted like it. Alex's quad had become a well-oiled machine since then, working together despite their differences. Jovan was born with charisma, where the rest of them had none, so he did most of the talking. He was a wonder to watch, working his ways with people. Alex had grown to adore him and his skills in the recent months. 

Cordin was a natural with a blaster, and helped the rest of them ace their training sessions they used the armor for. They were top of that class, and expressed disdain that the class never got into any actual fights. Alex was glad for that. His skills had to be learned completely from scratch, and he didn't feel like getting into that any time soon. His specialty came away from the fight, tracing data to its source, slicing apart the Republic security in the datapads to always be one step ahead of the day's lesson. The system was like paper in his hands versus what his father had set up for their home. Alex thought he'd never have anything to thank his father for, but apparently lying and hacking seemed to be paying off, in terms of the quad's grades at least.

Lee was the key to their operation though. She saw through all of them, and was a natural born leader. She united the group together. She knew of Jovan's homesickness better than Pad could comfort, and managed to keep Cordin's spirits up even after their electric blue hair had faded to a natural brown.

Now, they all stood at attention, facing their on-deck commander as he presented the day's itinerary.

"Today, I'm not here to guide you young cadets - I'm here as a guide. Congratulations guys, you're being promoted." Alex smiled. Usually promotion times took at least six months, but with what he'd been able to gather, there was a new batch of recruits coming in next week. They were just being moved somewhere else to make room.

"You all have your commlink directions. Your quads will be split to join your new armies." On cue, everyone's commlink beeped in unison.

They were splitting up their quad? But, Alex needed his people. He needed a team to work together with. He looked across his quad, making eye contact with Jovan.

"Sir, if we were just to be split up, why move us into quads? Why can we not move together with our friends?" Jovan to the rescue. The high speaking Coruscanti was at it again with his words, his eyes full of meaning. Pad turned to face him directly, pacing to the front of quad two.

"Yes, you would ask that Cadet Jovan. You've certainly got your group to work well with you these days. Worried you're new army won't appreciate that mouth of yours as much as Quad Two here?" Pad leaned in closer. "You will learn to make things work. The Republic doesn't take kindly to, what'd you say? Friends."

That settled it. Alex felt the pang of sadness that Jovan had to take the bulk of that. 

"Proceed straight to your new armies. The commanders will brief you when you get there." Pad turned. "Dismissed."

Alex turned around to face his bunk mates for the last time.

"So, where did they end up putting you?" Jovan smiled from behind him. Alex looked down at his wrist.

"Looks like I'm headed towards the left corridor, Drexl Army."

"I'm assigned to Acklay." His smile felt remorseful.

"This won't be the last time we're together," Alex turned to the rest of the squad. "I will find you. I'll slice us a comm channel, we'll be able to talk past this."

Jovan glanced down, away from Alex’s fierce eye contact. 

"I don't think our commanders will be appreciative of us collaborating with our enemies Alex." Lee walked over, crossing her arms against her chest.

"So then this is goodbye?" Cordin looked apprehensive.

"Yes. It has to be." Alex looked down at his commlink again. "I look forward to beating you on the simulation floor." He smiled up at his crew. "Until next time."

Jovan looked up. "Until next time, Alexsandr."

Alex turned, grabbing his data pad from his locker, and moving towards the door, where the others were leaving the bunks. He knew his way around the facility now, able to give directions, and not think too hard about the locations of things. He was a local. This was where he lived.

He'd never had a real need to go down and to the left most areas of the compound, he had no classes there. But he knew that that was where the action was. There were floating stories of the simulation floor, referred to simply by its nickname "The Box" by the upperclassmen. It was here that they'd be able to put their training to good use. Alex would have to figure out how to get out of fighting once again.

He took a left. He was growing tall for his age, but the average height at this wing was taller than him, and also much more muscular. There was no resentment as he walked past the older officers, but there was no welcome either. Alex was met with cold indifference.

When his comm finally flashed green and went dark, he was standing in front of a door adorned with a hastily painted depiction of a drexl. Teeth bared, legs poking out at odd angles. Alex ran his code cylinder through the door, and it opened into a cool, dark bunk room. All conversation that had lazily drifted through the door stopped. There were seven people sitting on various bunks in the room, huddled around a projection table in the center. As soon as Alex had entered, it was shut off.

"What are you doing here, _skraan_?" The Mando'a through Alex off a bit, but he appreciated the sentiment of the trying insult. Newbies had to live to be insulted after all.

"I was transferred here from my cadet group. I'm Alexsandr Kallus. Alex." The group exchanged a glance.

"You're Kallus? Here I thought I traded for some upper-class battle god and you're here for him?" Alex looked down.

"You can see my order sheet if you'd like, sir." Alex felt a well pooling in his stomach. Was he making a fool of himself? He doubted he went to the wrong place, but a miscommunication would be deemed his fault for certain.

The girl to the left of the commander who had spoken first rested her hand lightly on his shoulder. 

“You know we’ve been winning too much. It’s high time they throw some bantha fudu into our mix.”

The man nodded and turned his head back to face Alex. “Kallus, it’s fantastic to meet you. Welcome to Drexl, the finest cadet army in all of the Republic.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic. 

“I’m Gimm. This is Orbar and,” he pointed at the taller man to his right, “this is Hask.” He pointed to the girl. “They’re our squad leaders. "And since Hask seems so keen on you,” he turned to her, “She’ll be in charge of your training.” Gimm elbowed her towards Alex and got back to work. 

Hask stumbled a step, but then, light on her feet, recovered deftly. She breezed towards Alex as the rest of the group gathered around the strategy table again.  
“You look a bit short to be a Republic trooper, Kallus,” she said with a grimace. Alex shook his head lightly. 

“It’s Alex, please.”

“You know Gimm won’t ever call you that, right?” 

“But will you?” 

“I’ll think about it. It depends on how much mutiny I’ve got in my system that day.”

Alex took that as a maybe. Besides, he was going to have to get used to using his last name as a sign of respect. Even though to him, it was quite the opposite.  
Hask wandered over to her locker and ran her code cylinder through the slot. She grabbed the suit from inside, and started to pull it on. 

“I would do likewise if I were you.” She turned away from him to change. 

He turned to the bunk by the door that was well kept and bare. He assumed that would be his, and when nobody protested his existence in his area, it was confirmed. He ran his code cylinder through and pulled on his battle suit, noting the slightly more real looking blaster standing near the bottom. 

His armour from his quad had grown tight over the last few months. His shoulders bulked up and he had grown quite a bit taller. This suit comparatively seemed loose and fit weird across his back. The padding was different here too - much more across the chest and legs than before. The crown jewel of the collection was the helmet. It perched on the back of his neck, and tinted orange around his face. A painted drexl covered the back. 

“Have you taken long enough already, Kallus?” Alex jumped to attention. Hask stood behind him, already fully armored.  
“You’re going to have to do better than that when Gimm wants us battle ready in under a minute.” 

Alex realized that he would have to practice putting on his armor. It would be humiliating. It was what Gimm wanted him to feel.  
Hask peaked behind him. 

“Grab your blaster.” Alex hesitated. And then turned. Yes. Of course. My blaster. 

He grabbed it from the bottom of the locker and quickly holstered it at his side without another thought. 

Hask looked over her shoulder and shuffled out of the bunks. 

Once they were out in the hallway, her demeanor relaxed. 

“So when they send you up here, Alex?” 

“About three months ago.”

“That’s not a very long time.”

“It was long enough.” Alex noted her change in what she called him. He also noted the disappointment in his experience. 

“Have you ever been up to the box?” 

Alex shook his head.

“We didn’t get up there.”

Hask scoffed. 

“Just great. They give us an untrained quadster who hasn’t even got an ounce of experience to his name. It’s all a game the admirals are playing at.” She seemed to be getting into something she was angrily passionate about. 

“It’s all a game to them. They rank us against each other, make us fight their simulations. There’s no winner here Alex.” She shook her head.

“Anyways, great kriffing introduction I guess. Here’s the box.” She slammed her fist against the door with her code cylinder, opening up a hatch in the wall that was otherwise unmarked. 

“There’s many ways you can get into this place across the building, but no one ever sees each other besides those they came in with.”

“How…?” Alex tried to wrap his brain around how they box could possibly keep that many rooms active despite still appearing as a single space. 

“It’s best not to go looking for answers around here. The last guy that did got thrown out to the underlevels. They say he went mad.”

Great. Just what Alex needed. They entered the small hole in the wall, stepping out onto a great white metallic plane, gridded with gray squares. The expanse broadened out to a tower in the background. There was cover all around, various hills and walls built up a battle scene. 

Cordin would’ve loved this. Alex pondered his old quad for a moment. But they wouldn’t have seen the strategic possibilities. They’d rush right up to the tower to capture it, they wouldn’t take cover at all. Lee would direct them across the field, first taking the hill over there, and then-

Alex paused. Pad was right to promote them. He was thinking with the skills of all of his bunk mates. He didn’t need them anymore. 

I guess I just needed a push in the right direction.

Hask strode out towards the middle of the room, punching numbers in on her commlink. Suddenly, two droids stood up from across the platform to her. 

Two blasts. Two droids down. 

Another two popped up from the floor behind her.

“Hask! Look out!” Alex shouted out, trying to warn her. But she already knew, her stance had already shifted. Three more blasts. Two more droids down. Alex didn’t look to warn her for the next batch. More blasts. An equivalent number of droids down.

This continued until the lights came up and bathed the box in green. Hask turned to look at Alex. 

“Did you get all that?” Alex shook his head in disbelief. 

“Absolutely not. We didn’t really go over anything besides personal combat in training here.”

Hask nodded again.

“Alright. Well I suppose you won’t have any bad habits then.”

“I don’t have any good ones either.”

Hask laughed. 

“Here. Show me what you’ve got Kallus.”

Alex readied himself against the cover of a wall, while Hask retreated to where he had stood before. 

Deep breath in. Out. Okay. 

“Go.”

He heard the sound of the droids first before he saw them, but Alex had learned to trust his senses. He pushed himself to the left edge of the wall, using it as cover, and poked the edge of his blaster out. His first shot hit the first droid, but it alerted the second, who began firing. 

Alex ducked back behind the wall and rounded to the right side, waiting for the droid to peak out around. When it did, he took it down with three more shots. 

Watching Hask, he’d learned that the box always put the next round behind where his focus was, so he steadied himself, and when he heard the mechanical pattern of metal hitting the ground, he spun around, firing wildly. What he was not expecting was the proximity of the wave. Standing a foot away was the seven foot tall monstrosity. His blasts had hit the arm of one and a leg of another, but they had been damaged only, not disabled. Alex flailed for cover, but knew he wouldn’t make it in time. He would have to face these head on. 

He ran at the first droid sideways, avoiding the laser blasts, and tackled it from the side. 

The sudden weight unbalanced the droid and sent it stumbling. He rode the wave of gravity, firing at the head to disable it. The other droid drew closer, so Alex crouched behind the disabled one, and sprung onto the other. 

This time, however, he was not as lucky. The droid saw his attack coming and batted him away, letting him slide across the polished floor. 

Bruised but not to be outdone, Alex looked up and fired back at the droid, managing to hit it. He scrambled onto a hill for cover, turning himself around. The next two droids appeared, but had barely moved when he was hit with a stun blast from behind, seeing only then that there were four droids in this round. 

The room’s lights came on, bathed in red. 

Hask came out of her viewing position on the floor. 

“You’ve got spirit, Kallus.” She nudged him with her foot, trying to see if he could get up. Alex tenderly sat up from his prone position.  
“I thought I had them. Thought I knew the pattern.”

Hask smiled. 

“Yeah that’s what happens. I think the program knows somehow. It knows when you figure it out.”

“But you beat it before?” Alex was sitting at this point, stretching his wrists. 

“The program, I don’t know how else to say this but, the program only is able to be beaten when it wants to be. It’s alive in some way Kallus.”  
She offered her hand to him.

“When I was showing you it knew how long to go before you got the point. When I train it knows how much to put me through before I stop learning from it.”  
Alex contemplated this notion. 

“How can you guarantee fair battles then? Fair rankings of the armies here?”

“In war, no battle we go against will be fair. We just have to trust that we have the right skills for it.”

She looked down at her comm. 

“Care to go again?”

“Of course.”  
___  
By the time they were done with their first training session, dinner time in the mess hall was almost over. They hurried to the mess, just in time to grab rations before the lines closed. 

There were still many people eating in the main room, dressed in all the same color, the drab gray of the Republic. They were divided though, they sat in different groups, making sure the others didn’t hear what they were saying. The armies divided the academy. 

While they ate, Hask filled Alex in on a few key Mandelorian phrases Gimm was fond of. He felt a connection to them for some reason, the warriors of the past, even though his learned culture didn’t have anything to do with them. _At te payt_ was coming from the left, _at te stabbi_ was from the left. Any culture that he could get his hands on with warriors was something he took to kindly. 

He is the opposite of father. He takes the war and makes it his, he is made of violence and glorifies it. And he is the best commander in this school.  
Did Alex want to be Gimm? He didn’t think that he wanted to be a glorified war-monger. There was something about Gimm that was out of control. He didn’t value the authority that came with war, he valued the fighting. That’s what father saw him as, of course. Some wretched boy who couldn’t keep his fantasies of violence apart from his world of peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally figured out how to italicize in html so y'all in for it now


	6. Survive

Shouts rang across the Drexl barracks.

“Battle at 0700! Get those suits on!”

“Kallus you’d better start 5 minutes ago!”

Alex smiled. He’d since gotten used to the chiding that had come with getting his battle suit on. He was still a chipped tooth in the gear mechanism of Drexl, but he was pulling his own weight. He didn’t weigh down Gimm’s army anymore, and his commander saw that. Of course, they weren’t friends by any means. But Gimm relied on him in battle, and that was what he needed. 

Alex had begun to understand the rhythm and flow of the box by now, where enemies would appear, how to adapt to his senses more than his sight, and above all, how to work by himself within his squad. 

He sprung out of bed and to his locker, dragging out his armor and weapon with practiced ease. They’d start out in a formation, coming into the box with an arrowhead shape, then fanning out to the reaches of the room. From there it depended. What was the objective? What was the time limit? 

Alex knew that his shot accuracy could use work. He was ranked just under the top twenty in the academy over all at this point, of course with fair credit to Drexl. They set up well. Alex was sure that without them he’d be well below anyone worth noting. 

You had to go four spots down the rank board to find a soldier that wasn’t Drexel. Gimm, Hask, Orbar. They were all at the top. Yes, Alex, the one who drags behind despite being the highest ranked second year. He thought of Hask’s words when they had first trained together, so long ago it seemed. What if they’re going easy on Drexl? He shook the thought. What good could come from that? If the ranks weren’t fair, they wouldn’t hinge on eventual placement and graduation. He shoved the questions down. Those kinds of thoughts wouldn’t serve him well here. 

Of course, Alex had voiced his concerns publicly in his first few months. He had spoken a bit too loudly about flaws in the security system, didn’t take enough care to erase his steps, and he was soon locked out of all of his back ways in. It seemed just another test for him, seeing which ways he could make his way into tiny holes and then see if he could get out of them. 

Fortunately for Alexsandr, he was a very good liar. But even he could see his own limitations. 

He finished pulling on his armor, grabbed his helmet, and stood waiting, stiff by the edge of the corridor. The team assembled next to him, and they ran off in sync to the battle. 

It was a light jog, and Alex’s breathing remained steady. He’d grown stronger and faster over the course of the year spent at the academy. He ate healthier, and his mind ran faster. His classes were finally challenging enough not to bore him. No more topography drawings to keep him occupied. 

A yelp from the front cued the army to stop movement. A herd of clone troopers rushed by across their path in the hallway, looking to be in a hurry to rush off somewhere. Alex wondered what they did here. They never interacted with them in their studies, never battled with them. Some taught classes but Alex didn’t consider those to be real troopers. They were just sort of defective. They chose peace in a time of war. Teaching when their role was to be fighting. Why would you choose to teach others about what you could be doing on your own time? Let the humanoids teach. They couldn’t be wasted like the clones had to be. The army continued forward. 

The door to the box swung open before them, a panel disappearing in the great gray walls of the complex. The troop stepped in, arrowhead formation and all.  
Gimm blasted the first few droids on the way in, clearing a path. 

The square tile in the wall that had opened up abruptly closed as soon as Alex had stepped in. The white grid stretched out for a few feet in front of him, then dropped off the edge. Droids were trying to come at them from below. Nice. They had the high ground. They just had to defend it. 

It was a typical mission. They had been given a base, a point to refuge to, but Alex could tell there was something awry about the whole thing. 

Four droids popped up from the grid off the side of the tower. Alex fired two shots, hitting the first square in the chest, and disabling the gun of the next. 

“Nice shot Cadet Kallus!” Hask shouted from across the room. 

Two more droids spawned, rising from beneath the floor. And then two more. There were about ten on the offensive now. Now twelve. They were gaining forces every thirty seconds it seemed. 

Alex heard Gimm curse in a language he didn’t understand. 

“Ashbo!” Steady. Stay balanced. It was a new Lasan phrase Gimm had picked up recently and had been keen to use. Alex kept his position. They would have to do something soon. Something had to stop the waves from coming. Gimm thought the box would just stop giving them waves to defeat, but Alex could see through that. 

They always test our creativity. I need to do something more than just blast these droids. They’re testing to see what we do in the face of being overwhelmed with enemies. I’m going to find a new angle. 

Alex stopped firing and ducked back to the wall. 

“I’m going down there.” He shouted to Gimm over the echo of blaster fire.

“Kallus! Are you joking?” Gimm seemed surprised. “You’ll get yourself shot! Our number of damaged soldiers will increase! We’ll lose first rank to Rancor!”

“There’s something wrong with the simulation this time, Gimm, the droids aren’t going to stop coming until we do something.” Anger tinted in Alex’s voice, but he managed to keep a steady tone. If not slightly annoyed. How could his commander not feel the pattern? It was like the box was alive, trying to feel out how they’d react. They needed to react to get results. The inaction of a simple defense just wasn’t like it. Gimm angrily blasted a few more droids. 

“I swear if they keep coming…” Gimm sighed. “Fine! Kallus! Go get yourself killed out there! See if I care.”

Alex gave Gimm a slight smile. 

“I’ll… I’ll cover you.” He turned back to blasting the oncoming storm of droids.  
Alex took a grappling hook from his side belt and hooked it to the lip of the hatch where they’d come in. He spooled out an ample amount of the long wire, took a breath, and threw himself down the edge of the tower. 

He was out of the blast zone for seconds as the droids adjusted to the new target location. Alex swung towards the side all of the box, and pushed himself off, making targeting him even harder for the scrappy training droids. He was two feet off the ground when he unclipped the tether and flew to the ground, rolling to catch his weight. He surveyed the area quickly. 

To his left. Huge swarm of droids. In the hundreds at this point. 

I already knew that though. What do I not know? What can I not see? 

To his right. The wall of the tower. Straight, flat gridding. Except. A lip. Much like the door they’d crawled into before. Alex dove from the blaster fire, clawing at the lip.  
Miraculously, it opened, and Alex slipped into the tight square, closing it behind him for cover. Blaster shots rang against the closed door. 

His eyes started to adjust to the dim light from the starkness of the box. Where was he?  
Light seemed to emanate from the grid lines on the floor and walls, but unlike inside the box, the shaft here was dark, pitch black. Alex took a breath and started crawling along the tunnel. 

This had to be a trap. I’m crawling to just another fate here, one that’s different than the onslaught of the battle droids. What is the box teaching me this time? To leave my friends behind? To save myself only to become meat for another, solitary death?

The path took a sharp turn. The grid started to fade out, replaced with a soft light from down the passage. Where gridmarks were, slight bumps in the floor became more apparent. He was in a rectangular metal shaft. An air duct maybe? He knew the box had multiple entrances but never thought one would lead to something besides the hallway.  
The sounds of battle were now distant, and Alex started to pick up on something different, wafting from further down the pipeline. 

“Don’t you think they’ve quite had enough?”

“You faced more on Geonosis! I think it's a good test of endurance, right guys?”

There were slight murmurs of agreement.

Alex paused in his tracks. Were they also in the tunnel? They couldn’t be. It was obviously the sound of clones, but from where? Alex crawled further down the air duct. The light grew stronger, turning into slits in the side of the duct. 

“How long do you think they’ll hold out?”

“They already have three of their eight kids down. I think it will be soon enough.”  
So they were meant to lose this one. It was meant to be a massacre. Drexl would lose points. On purpose. 

“Oh there goes two more! This is really quite the show!” 

Alex couldn’t stand it. He was just to lay here while his army suffered? What was the win condition for this exercise? Survive? Defend? They could do neither in the state they were in. This time though, Alex knew one thing for certain. There was no algorithm. There was nothing mechanical about it. No fairness in the system. Drexl had been played this entire time. And now Alex was going to go save them. 

He scooted around as much as he could in the tight space, aiming himself back towards the box. 

He could hear the sound of laser fire returning, and took a deep breath. He’d need a plan. Obviously he couldn’t just march out and take out all the droids. He needed to wait. At the end of each battle, the droids retreated. So once all of Drexl was presumed dead, he would march out. The objective became clear to him then. This wasn’t defense. This was a test of survival. But only he would survive. 

He listened to the din of the battle. Finally, a cry rang out across the field. Hask. Of course she’d be the last to go out. More and more, Drexl’s wins were coming from her heroics. But even she would tire. 

At last, the droids stopped firing. Alex felt heat build up in his chest, getting ready to pop out from behind the wall. Metallic marching echoed on the other side. A series of clunks. And then. Silence, but no change of color. No red, no green. 

Alex threw open the door to the box. The light of the room shook his eyes, watering as they adjusted. Blaster out, he swept the room. No sign of droids. No green light.  
What was the objective? What was he supposed to do? 

The telltale shake of a platform rising from below shook the ground. Alex sighed. The controllers hadn’t realized he was here. He was to be tested too. Across the wide expanse of gridded space rose a panel with a slumped figure on it. It rolled over, onto the ground, and then stood up. It was Gimm. Battle weary eyes, still getting over being stunned from the battle. 

“Where were you! Kallus!” Gimm’s eyes grew angry. “You left us when we most needed you! You coward!” 

Alex took a step back. 

“I was just trying to solve the puzzle of the room while you lead Drexl to ruin! Gimm you lost here! You lost because you couldn’t figure out what this room was meant to be.”  
“Oh I know what this is meant to be. Survive.” He readied his blaster. “And you’re the final enemy, in my book.”

Cadet Kallus knew that Gimm was right. This was the final challenge. The showdown that would determine who was really fit to survive the school. But Alex, Alex did not want to fight Gimm. Gimm was his leader. Gimm who actively prevented him from getting better than him. Gimm who made sure his practice times were cut short by dinner every day. Gimm who cared about himself more than anyone in Drexl.  
Gimm charged at him, firing on all cylinders. 

Cadet Kallus won out. 

He ducked under Gimm’s first attack, using his momentum to swing himself around and fire a few stun blasts at the space where he was. Gimm was stronger than he was, but Kallus was much quicker on his feet. He could use that. Gimm took another swing, but this time he wasn’t there. He’d rolled behind Gimm, taking his arm with him. Gimm flew over on his back, and Kallus swung out his feet, kicking him in the side. He fluidly stood up and shot one stun blast at Gimm, fully disabling him.

No need to get messy today. This is where I stop. 

The lights turned green in the arena. 

I did what I had to do to win the fight. This is how I won. 

There will be fights after this, and Gimm will not stop now, nor ever. But this was how I have won for today, and that is good enough. 

A panel opened on the side wall, and Alex walked back to the barracks alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what a consistent chapter length is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask


	7. Commander

Hask was the first to enter the barracks. Alex was at his desk under his bunk, silently reading something about the physics of hyperspace. She calmly strode over to his bunk and leaned up on the side rungs. 

“Wild showdown that was, eh Alex?”

Alex didn’t respond. 

Hask’s expression fell. 

“He’s out to get you now. Telling all the commanders that it’s your fault we lost. Kind of stuff that spreads fast here.”

So, the battle wouldn’t be all physical then. Alex would have to win back the respect of his peers as well. Convince the powers that be that he was right to take down his commander to win a battle. 

“None of us saw what happened down there Alex.”

It would be Gimm’s word against his. 

“Do you even know?”

Alex shook his head. 

“The win condition messed up,” he said. “I believe it was supposed to be a pure defense run that got mixed up with survival. That’s why our stats were so bad that round.”

“But you still managed to win.” Hask tilted her voice down, but Alex knew it was a question. Not an “us”. Not Drexl as a whole, but a “you”. How did you win, Alex.

“The box wanted me to fight Gimm. I don’t know why. I don’t want to look into it, Hask. I feel like we saw something that we know we shouldn’t be asking questions about.” 

I know I saw something I wasn’t supposed to. Those controllers in the room. Who were they? Alex silenced his racing mind. No questions. 

Hask sighed angrily. 

“And why not? Why must we accept that we can never ask questions?” She slammed her hands on the rungs and turned around. 

“One day you’ll start asking questions, Kallus. And you won’t like your answers.” She fumed over to her bunk at the back of the room. 

Alex turned his attention back to his reading. 

The rest of Drexl petered in one by one until mid afternoon. Gimm still wasn’t back, but Alex would've been surprised if he showed. Figuring it was safe, he headed to the mess hall to grab something to snack on, and visited the library on the way back. He grabbed a few books for the write up he was currently working on. He shuffled back out, trying to balance a meal, two books and his holopad. He kicked a large object beneath his feet, which sent him flying.

Stupid mouse droids. They always got in the way. 

He picked up his things and hurried back to the barracks. 

Drexl didn’t acknowledge him at all walking in. No greeting, no noise. He set his books down on the desk and opened up a new tab on his holopad. 

The door buzzed. 

“Hello? This is Drexl army, correct?” The voice sounded younger than what Alex had grown used to over the past year. 

The young cadet stepped into the light. She was small too, younger than Alex remembered being. 

Looks glanced across the room. Hask stood up. 

“Yes, this is Drexl. What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been assigned here. I’m Cadet Gear'a Kell.”

So that was it. Gimm wasn’t coming back at all. Had they flunked him out? Graduated him? Transferred him? It was unclear. 

Hask spoke up. 

“Well isn’t that just fine and dandy here.” She paced across the room. 

“It just says here I’m supposed to meet with the Commander of Drexl army.” She was scared. 

Hask retorted. 

“And does it say who our commander is? Right now we have a distinct lack of one if you can tell.” She walked over to the front of the room. 

Alex glanced back at his desk, noticing a small, telling sign of a notification. He reached back and clicked it. 

“Apparently I am,” he mused out loud. Hask looked at him with surprise. As did the rest of the bunk. 

Alex turned his attention to the newcomer. 

“I’m the newly instated Commander Kallus, and I’m very pleased to have you aboard, Kell. Please, call me Alex.”

The young cadet nodded. 

“Thank you Commander.”

“Your bunk is over there, left side by the wall.”

Kell nodded, and began walking over with Alex.

“How much experience did your group get within the box, cadet?”

Kell shifted. 

“Enough, sir.”

“Well, just enough won’t be good enough for me, nor our squad. I expect you to be able to keep up with us tomorrow during training, and if not, that you will train yourself to keep up.”

“Absolutely sir.” There was still fear in her voice. Good. Let her fear him. Let this entire army fear him if he needed them to. He needed to have them band together, even if it would be without him. 

He gestured to his team to gather around the room’s central holo for a session. 

“I don’t intend to keep things light and airy around here. I don’t intend to cut any more slack than Gimm used to, and I certainly won’t be giving you any extra time to keep up.”

I’m just scaring them so that they hate me. They’ll trust me, and they’ll trust each other, and we will work well together, but they’ll hate me. 

“We are going to take back that number one spot if it kills us.”

With that Alex swung back to his bunk, alone. The rest of the army remained gathered around the strategy screen, voices low. In just one day, Gimm had managed to turn his entire army against him. 

___

In the coming days, it would become clear that Hask ran the bulk of Drexl Army. She got them to laugh and work together while Alex pulled them through their strenuous drills. 

Kell was a phenomenal student. She proved just how behind Alex had been when he started out in the army. 

And Alex was helping her. Late at night he would explain the ethos of the box, how every mission had an objective, and how you could feel if it was wrong. 

One night, a weary eyed but attentive Hask appeared at one of their sessions, seeming to listen more than she learned. 

But Hask kept coming back. And she started asking questions. 

Hask brought along two other Drexl soldiers the next night. By the end of the week, Alex had all of the eight cadets of Drexl listening to his lessons on the box. 

They trusted him. 

That night, Hask lingered behind after the rest of the team had gone. 

“Not asking too many questions this time Alex, eh?” She started off into the dark back of the room. 

“Just answering them this time, Hask.”

“Do you really believe it’s not a program? That there are actual people watching this, recording us?”

“Hask, how else could they control us like this? How else could they adapt?”

Hask shook her head. 

“I looked too far into this to follow down another wild loth-cat chase.” She turned away from him “It cost me my command.”

Ah. There it was. She blamed her natural inquisitiveness for the reason that she did not currently lead Drexl. It made sense in a roundabout sort of way.

“Maybe so. But you’re still here. You’re still in the program. And when I start not being able to hold myself back from finding these answers, Drexl will be yours Hask.” 

She nodded. Of course she understood where he was coming from, but in the moment it was hard for her to process. 

“I’m sorry Hask. I’m sorry for what you’ve lost.”

Hask turned to look at him. 

“I’m more sorry for the Alex I used to know.” She paced around the table. 

“The youngster who came to Drexl to learn, not to tear us apart as Gimm did. The younger Alex that trained hard and earned his rank in the top twenty. The Alex that could see through the box to its core.” She took a breath. 

“I’m proud of you Alex, no matter who you’ve become, but please, remember your beginnings.”

Alex churned on the inside. He looked away from Hask. 

“You’re dismissed, Cadet Hask.”

Hask was trying to get at something deeper in Alex, trying to learn why he hid from his name. He wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t allow himself to be friendly with these people. Hask had to trust him, and that was it. 

Alex took one more look at the simulator, looking for patterns, something that appeared every time. The only things that remained were the way in and the way out.


	8. Jovan

A notification buzzed on Alex’s holopad.

Battle at 0800. Box entrance on corridor 7.

He smiled. Their first together with him as a commander. Taking a deep breath, he shouted out across the barracks.

“Battle at 0800! Fifteen minutes cadets, let’s get over there in half time!”

He scooted out of bed and threw his armor on, fastening his belt across, and held his helmet to the side. 

“Kell, what are you doing over there? Trying to smuggle a bantha in with us?” Laughter rang out across the bunk. Spirits were high, and they were ready to move.

Alex brought the group to a steady trot towards corridor seven, where they spotted the inset door. 

“Form up behind me, we’re headed in.” He threw his code cylinder into the lock and headed into the white glow of the room. 

It was a simple challenge from the outside. Capture the point. Pure offense. 

But Alex wanted to see the best out of his soldiers. 

“Group up,” he whispered, avoiding the mechanisms of the room. “I want to take this with no casualties.”

Alex made some quick orders and wild gestures, and then, content with his plan, fanned out his troop. They crouched behind the barricades and waited for the first wave. 

Let the enemy come at me first, let me know how many of them there are. Give us the upper hand. 

The floor rumbled. Two groups of five droids appeared. 

Shots rang out from his team as the droids were dispatched. His team ran forward to the next barricade as the next wave came up from the floor. 

As this continued, Alex took his squad up and around the line of fire, dodging droids and blaster shots. The rest of his squad drew the fire away from his team. 

He approached the point near the back of the room and put his palm against it.  
The room glowed green. 

A single soldier had been damaged in the battle. No casualties. 

Drexl army slid two spots up the rank boards. Fifth rank was theirs. Five more till first.  
Spirits ran high in the barrack that evening. Alex had let them go without an afternoon practice on their account of such a divisive victory. His squad needed something to celebrate. 

Alex sat on top of his bed, flicking through class notes and drawings. This was after all, a school rather than just the box and armies and everything. The trick was just balancing everything together. 

That seemed to come naturally to Alex, and he quickly had climbed the academic ladder of success. That coupled with his success in Drexl and the box had seated him firmly near the top of his class. He was proud of his success. 

Mother would be proud of me. Alex paused. 

Mother would be proud of the effort I'm putting in and the results I'm getting out of it. Mother would not be proud of what I've become here. 

Mother was so loving towards him, she cared about what he did, but she would never support him if she knew Alex had become as manipulative as father to get his way. He'd conned everyone in Drexl into respecting him even when they called him by his father's stupid pascifist name. He'd gotten into their heads about the patterns and now they trusted him to make calls. He'd gotten Hask to believe he was worthy of her unwavering support. 

Alex closed his eyes. 

Father wouldn't be proud of me either. He'd want me to flunk out, to fail every test they gave me. He'd want me to ask too many questions. He will not stop until this war is stopped directly in its tracks, with or without the consequences. 

Alex would be just one soldier that didn't fight though. He'd be one cog in the great mechanism that didn't turn. The war would still go on, even without him. It was the least he could do to drive some expertise in it. 

It was, as always, the Jedi's fault that the war pressed on. They were peaceful by nature just like his father. If the conflict were to ever end, they needed people who knew how to fight wars. 

I'm helping to end the war. I'm helping to bring peace. I'm helping to bring swifter justice to the galaxy, not some drawn out conflict that just promotes entropy. I'm the solution to this problem, not some abrupt end with no real solution in sight. This is the solution. I am the solution. 

In the back of his head, he knew it wouldn't be enough. There was a small piece of father in him that always shouted at him when he thought like this that told him that no bloodshed was ever warranted. Was Anton beating him and taunting him warranted? Was Alex kicking him till he lay still on the floor warranted? Alex asked these things to the father that lived in his head. 

No, you should have just taken the beating. You should have run away. 

Like a coward? You assume I can't hold my own in a fight? 

Alex realized he was clamping his fingers down hard enough on his palms that he'd drawn blood from his hands. 

He let out a breath, and swung over his bunk, making his way towards the bathrooms to wash them off. 

Hask stopped him at the door. 

"Alex!" She looked down across him. 

"Are you alright? Alex, seriously, you look awful." She stood in front of him. 

"Hask, it's fine." Alex looked up, unwilling to tell her. "What do you care about anyway?"

Hask looked taken aback.

"Alex, you know I care." There was an echo in her voice though. Alex took it. 

"Again, Hask, it's fine. I didn't expect you to. We won, and that's what matters to you." 

He stormed out of her way. He didn't want to stew on this argument, especially when he'd just gotten everyone to trust him again. 

He turned out into the cool of the corridor, hot with anger and embarrassment. It was one thing he had different than father at the very least; while father’s anger ran cold, his ran hot, expressive. He could throw people off their rhythm this way, off of their stances, of their position while fighting. His words and actions could cut deeper than any punch that was thrown. 

His father had done that to him often. And now he was doing that to Hask, who cared enough for him to reach out. Could he ever find something in his heart to return that sort of care? 

He had with his quad, Alex realized. He’d laughed and learned with them. And he had cared about Hask before when they were training under Gimm. But he couldn’t now.  
Alex swiftly turned the corner into the washrooms, flicking the lights of the communal area. He stepped over to the sink and began scrubbing the areas on his palms where his nails had cut into. 

Movement of others in the room caught enough of Alex’s attention to turn off the sink with caution, pausing to listen. 

“I was afraid I was too late to catch you, Alexsandr.” 

Alex jumped a foot in the air, not expecting the voice. 

“Jovan,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “It’s been so long. I was afraid you’d forgotten.” Alex smiled, warm again with friendship instead of anger. Jovan gave a slight smile back. 

“I’m certain you’re already aware, but you’re quite the talk of the entire academy here. What with your deal with mutiny against your commander and all.” Jovan tilted his voice down. “I did not believe it for a second, just for your records, Alexsandr.”

Alex relaxed. 

“Ah, so you haven’t come to kill me then.”

“I wouldn’t say I’ve come to do that _yet_.” Jovan shrugged. “Come on. The communal refresher is hardly the place for you to defend your honor.” He motioned out the door. 

Alex readily followed. He was hardly in a position to argue, and, quite frankly, didn’t feel he had it in him tonight. 

“It’s quite late for us to be out.” Alex half heartedly remarked, trying to get more conversation out of the other man. 

“Yes, so we’ll have to head somewhere where it’ll look like we’re doing something else. Like-"

“Like studying.” Alex’s eyes lit up. “We should head to the library.” 

Jovan nodded with a smile. 

“You’re always three steps ahead of my own game, even now.”

Jovan truly cared for Alex. More than Hask, more than anyone. He understood Alex. He felt that as the warmth seeped into his skin and crawled across his face. Jovan made him feel like he belonged somewhere, even if that somewhere was a quad that didn’t exist anymore. 

“Have you heard at all from Lee or Cordin?” 

Jovan hadn’t. This rumor about Alex was the first he’d managed to catch wind of any of their group from before. Alex figured that the school was designed that way, so that they couldn’t form too many relationships, too much loyalty to each other versus the Republic as a whole. It made sense in theory. 

The duo turned into the library as the lights in the corridor dimmed for lights out. Conversely, the library was a lively hub of overtired students, trying to study for exams. Students rushed past with huge stacks of datapads, rushing from one corner of the world to the other. 

Alex laughed out loud. The sight was so alien to him now he’d almost forgotten what the academy was supposed to be originally. 

“Remember when we used to be those sort of students, Alex? Rushing to cram in materials for exams that we had to be challenged by?” 

Of course Alex remembered. He remembered late nights with Jovan and Lee, trying to teach Cordin how calculus might sort of relate to a certain fighting stance they could remember it by. 

They sat down at a table near the door. 

“So Alex.” Here was the real discussion of the night. Alex readied himself.  
“What really happened in that match with you and Gimm? I refuse to believe anything but your own word.”

Alex began to explain. The patterns in the box, the fated defense. And words just began to pour out as he tried to justify why he left the defense squad to try to crawl down into the lower spaces. And what he saw, and his plan and-. And of course his fight with Gimm. The rumors had at least gotten that part right. 

But now Jovan would know. Jovan and his sweet talking mouth would defend him across the academy, they’d at least bring some sense of honor to his name. 

Alex felt himself shaking more than he should’ve. He steadied himself, grabbing the edge of the table. He told Jovan what happened. His story took a pause, and then ended. 

Jovan pondered the new information.

“Do you really think that the box is controlled by people?” It was barely more than a whisper. 

“I’m certain of it.” Alex found strength in his words. “How else could it adapt as quickly as it does? How else could we be met with so many new challenges? Droids and programs repeat themselves so often - there would be at least some recognizable pattern.”

“Of course you would know.” That same sly smile. “I’d say we should find out, Alex.”

Alex felt his stomach swirl, and this time it wasn’t just because of Jovan’s smile. 

Asking questions could remove his command. Researching the box on the other hand. Well, that would just look like he was getting his options out of the way. 

“Alright Jovan. I’m in.” 

Jovan clapped his hands. 

“Wonderful!” 

Alex let out a chiding breath. “You can start with everything you can find in the library and access through your pad. As for me,” Alex thought for a second, “There’s a few loopholes in security I’ve given up chasing for a while. I’ll see if I can’t lure a tooka to some milk for that one.”

Jovan paused in confusion. 

“Tookas do not consume -”

“It’s a figure of speech, not that you top-sider would know much of any interesting slang.” Alex grinned. They had come so far since their first interaction. 

Jovan stood from his seat. 

“Come now commander, let’s get you back home.” 

Alex stood alongside him, following his well worn path to Drexl. 

“I’ll find a way to comm you Jovan. For real this time.”

“And if you do not, consider it fine.”

Alex nodded, approaching his door and turning to stop. 

“I just needed to know that the Alex I came here with was still living somewhere inside the rumors I kept hearing.” Jovan leaned up against the wall next to the door latch for the army.

“I’ll always be Alex on the inside Jovan. You know that. Whatever they call me - Kallus, Commander, Cadet. It’ll always be Alex.” He wanted to believe his words. He didn’t tell Jovan about his fears with them, but he was too caught in the moment. Looking at how Jovan leaned against the wall. Watching his hair as it reflected the light. Trailing down his face to his lips. He shifted his ears back. 

“To me you will be.” Jovan shifted slightly closer, and brought his arm down from the wall to Alex’s face. Alex brought his hand up to Jovan’s to mirror the action, and tug themselves together. 

And Alex kissed him. Full of the happiness they had together just now, the promises to find out about the darker secrets they’d discovered in the time then. 

They paused for a second, breathing, giggling, before Jovan leaned in again, kissing him. 

This was for all the time they’d lost from each other. This was for what the Republic had done to separate Alex from his newfound family. 

There was a clatter from behind the door of Drexl. Alex pulled back, suddenly fully aware of what he was doing. Of what he could be caught doing. 

“I- I have to go.” He managed to get out before pulling away. 

Jovan’s expression darkened, just slightly. 

“I understand.” He wiped his mouth off with his sleeve. “I understand, Commander.” Jovan turned, and walked off into the dusk of the corridor. 

Alex was left on his own terms once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extra chapter friday ~


	9. Gimm

He felt the light buzz of the notification on his commlink before he could process hearing it. Alex shifted over, scanning the message with blurry eyes. 

_Battle at 0600. Box entrance on corridor 13._

Another battle? Two across two days? 

Alex checked the time. Only five minutes until the battle. He groaned loudly, turning it into a wake up call. 

“Alright Drexl! They gave it to us too easy yesterday and they’re getting back up on us! We’ve got a battle in four minutes here!”

He heard groans from across the cabin as he swung down and began to tug on his suit. One arm, next arm. This was too slow. 

“Drexl we gotta get moving! I don’t care if you’re not dressed we have to get to thirteen, on the double!”

Alex palmed open the door, suddenly struck by memories from last night that flooded in. 

I kissed Jovan. 

Okay, yes you did Alex, now let’s get Drexl moving. Come on Commander. Up and at them. 

Alex shook his head. 

“Let’s head out Drexl! We got this!”

The army stumbled out into the corridor, pulling on boots and legs as they ran. This run was fast paced, not in sync, and late to the party. 

They only gave me five minutes of notice. How was I supposed to tell them to be ready? How was I supposed to know? Alex made excuses up in his head to his teachers. 

They approached corridor thirteen, four minutes past when they were supposed to enter. Alex stopped at the door, and Hask ran past him. 

“Wait, Hask, hold on.” He gestured to the door. “The enemy has had four whole minutes to set up. We can’t assume anything.”

He slid his code cylinder through the door. 

Peering inside, there was nothing. But the white of the box indicated that it was active. There were active droids somewhere. Alex paused, trying to think. A slight noise caught his attention. His eyes widened. 

Alex turned back to the group, laying one finger across his mouth, pressing them to be quiet, as his other arm gestured around the outside of the door. They’d be waiting for them around the wall, where they were certain to come out. 

Alex pulled one of their largest soldiers out from the ranks, and stationed Kell behind him. The larger soldier would act as a shield for Kell, up until she could get to cover. Until then she could tell Alex and the army what they were up against. 

Alex gave the pair a nod, and off they went. 

Blaster fire disabled the larger man quickly, but Kell was able to make it to cover. She picked off the droids one by one, but Alex knew it wouldn’t be enough. He assigned each person a shield and a shooter, and ventured out himself. 

They won with half casualties. It was a loss for Drexl, but a win for their standings. Fourth rank was theirs, four more until first rank. 

Alex sat down at his bunk later, trying to tie loose ends. The late notification, the complete lack of respect from the box. He needed answers faster. 

He began to tug at the strings of data within the banks stored on the academy database. He knew there was more to be found than just what was given to them. He knew that the Jedi themselves had a library that contained these vast swaths of galactic knowledge, and if he could find a back way into that he’d be golden. It was a roundabout way into it. He wasn’t trying for the shoddily patched routes he’d gone before. This time, he was trying to reach into the very organization he’d grown to resent. 

The strings tied together neatly, but soon, Alex began to find weak points. He pulled at advertisements, tracked where they’d come from, and rode those entries to new platforms. Soon he arrived at a terminal, located within the Jedi temple. Alex let out a sigh of relief, shook off his sweaty fingers, stretched out his back, and dove in again. 

Let’s see what they have on our little Academy here. 

_“The Royal Academy of the Republic was established on Coruscant during the Clone Wars to train Republic cadets into officers in the Republic Navy. Due to its relationship with the Republic Navy, the Royal Academy was regarded as the most prestigious of the Republic’s network of Academies”_

Well yes, that much Alex knew. 

_“The Royal Academy had a rigorous three-year program that was known for its intense competition and high washout rate. Cadets were required to study science, mathematics, piloting, and physical training. Frequent tests were held to challenge the mental, physical, and emotional limits of the students, in the form of training known as The Box.”_

Now they were getting somewhere. He highlighted The Box and clicked forward with the link.

_“The Box was an enormous, cubical structure designed by criminal mastermind Moralo Eval. Its interior was capable of shifting into numerous configurations designed to test the skill of bounty hunters.”_

Criminal mastermind? Bounty hunters? What sort of tech was the Republic dealing with here?

_“The Box took the form of a cube with several internal cubical rooms. Each room was outfitted with a given set of puzzle traps, ranging from dioxis to electrified laser blades, ray shielded walls and flamethrowers. The configuration of these rooms could be controlled from a command center located either somewhere within or nearby the structure or from a controller mounted on Moralo Eval's wrist.”_

That was what Alex needed. It wasn’t programmed, the box was not fair. And the controllers were somewhere within or nearby. Alex just needed to find them.  
He traced back his steps, sealing the holes he’d created in security, and powered down his datapad. 

He’d never seen flamethrowers in the box. Not yet. 

___

The all-too-familiar sound of a battle notification woke Alex from a deep sleep. He didn’t want to look at it. 

_Battle at 1100. Box entrance on corridor 2._

What would they throw at him this time? He buzzed an alert to Hask, letting her know that when the group was done in the mess to head over to get dressed for battle. 

The fight was a rough one. The box had decided that today, enemies that they had blasted would not stay stunned for over five minutes. The droids just powered back up when they felt like it, firing back. 

Drexl still pulled out the win, finding cover and firing back. 

Alex stormed out across the complex afterwards, throwing his helmet against the wall of the bunk. 

Every morning they would be greeted with the sound of the battle notification. And although they trained hard, nothing had prepared them for this level of exhaustion. Drexl was growing tired. Alex was too. 

Five days, five battles, each with some new twist thrown at them. 

What will it be next? Our visors are blacked out and our hands tied behind our backs? Should we just be going up against a firing squad at the next point?

Alex laid down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his bunk. 

The rest of the army had gone off to dinner after the second battle of the day. Alex was tired. He was done fighting the people controlling the box. He was done running the people he’d grown to trust into the ground. 

The door to the barracks buzzed open, and silently, a few huge forms bustled in, and stopped. 

They didn’t take the care with their step that Drexl did, and Alex took note. This was not his army. 

Alex rolled over and cursed. It was Gimm. He sat up in his bunk and slid down over the ladder. 

“I guess they didn’t flunk you out after all that, eh Gimm?” Alex started the confrontation lightly. He knew where this was going to end up. 

Gimm shifted. As did the other two he’d brought along. Alex recognized Orbar, and another girl from their new army. 

“You took everything from me, Kallus, and you’ll pay for that. My command. My army. My honor.” 

“If it’s honor you’re after, you would have come alone, Gimm.” 

The larger man looked off his other two goons, and squared up in a fighting stance.  
So it had come to this. A final confrontation between the commander and former commander of Drexl. Alex remembered their last fight, looking for key details. He didn’t have his stun blaster with him this time. There would be no peaceful end to this.  
Gimm yelled out, and took the first swing at him. Alex dodged to the right, remembering his speed. 

Gimm hooked around, swinging out his arms wildly. Alex dodged again. 

“You coward! Fight me _hut'tuun!”_

Alex found his footing, and used the edge of the desk to push off at Gimm. His speed surprised the attacker, giving him the slight advantage to land a hit above his knees. Gimm lashed out again, this time connecting with Alex’s shoulder. Alex felt the anger well up in him as he stood, panting in his own room. 

Gimm swung around again, but this time, Alex was ready. He ducked out of the way and pulled Gimm’s fist along with him, throwing him into the hard metal of the bunk. They met with a resounding clang. Gimm fell heavily onto the floor beneath his desk. He knew that this was not the last fight. Gimm was like Anton. There would never be an end if he wasn’t to win now. Kallus reached back and struck Gimm again, making him sprawl across the floor of Drexl. Once more. Kallus looked back up at the crowd Gimm had originally brought, and stood back. 

“Take him to med bay.” 

The two shuffled over, supporting Gimm’s head, dragging him across the floor, out of Drexl. They closed the door behind them. 

That was it then. That was done. 

Alex sat down on the floor beneath him and began to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> credit to the good wookiepedia for those data entries on The Box


	10. Victory

There were always two doors in the box. One way in, one way out. It was the only pattern Alex could find in the coming days. But it gave him hope. It gave him hope that there would be another match where he could find the exit that led to the commanders of the box again, and prove their existence beyond what his crew had deemed half-truths and hyperboles. 

Alex had his thoughts and facts, and a well constructed feeling for what the box was at this point, as far as he knew. He hadn’t shared any of this with anyone. Least of all Jovan. He couldn't allow himself to dwell too fondly on him. It wasn't allowed. Alex couldn't let anything get in the way of his path. 

He was up in the morning earlier than the notification could buzz, but he could feel it coming anyways. 

_Battle at 0900. Box entrance on corridor 5._

This would be the last one. It was the last one Alex could deal with, for now at least. They’d have to find another commander for Drexl after this. 

Alex closed his eyes. He had a few more seconds of rest in him. 

Breathe in. Breath out. Open your eyes. Swing out of bed. 

Alex landed softly on the floor, and went over to the light switch. Flicking it on, he was met with weary but awake faces. 

“Alright Drexl. Today’s the day. We’re going to show them that no matter what they throw at us, we can handle it.” Even if what they throw at us is seven battles in six days.

 _Frequent tests were held to test mental, physical, and emotional strength,_ his reading material reminded him. 

Too frequent, he thought to himself. I must be their best student if this is what it takes to get them to test me. 

His army stood at the ready as Alex turned to march out of the barracks. He slowed the pace to keep even with Hask. 

"Our people are growing tired you know.” 

Of course Alex knew. He just didn't know what to make of it. 

"They'll just keep throwing more battles at us until we break and they can throw us out, Hask." Alex sounded weary. Too dejected. 

"Don't tell me they've already succeeded with you Alex." Hask looked across at him. She'd grown so much as a soldier under his command. Because he'd let her grow. Gimm had always held her back, in positions she couldn't accommodate. 

"Not yet Hask. I should tell you they're close though." Alex looked down, and ran back up to the head position. 

Corridor five was right in front of them. Alex took a breath, and headed into the box.  
Once in, the ground reoriented itself. The way they entered became the ground, and the door sealed behind them on the floor. Alex didn’t want to find out how the gravity reoriented so quickly. It was too much, already knowing half the secrets this place had to offer. 

The army clustered at a slightly raised platform, surrounded by a series of boxes for cover. It was a defense setup, that much Alex was sure of. They’d have to defend the point they sat on until the droids had dissipated. 

Unless they didn’t. Alex thought back to the last defense point Drexl had gone through.  
Hask felt it too, and she shifted next to Alex. 

“Ashbo,” she whispered. Steady. Be balanced Alex. Don’t let the feelings from last time get in the way of our success this time. 

Alex let out a breath of air, and listened as the first wave came forward. The rattle of the elevators resounded around Drexl, droids appearing from every corner of the room. They were completely surrounded. Alex blasted the few in front of him, and watched as Hask and Kell did the same around him. 

However, soon enough they began to wear him down, and there was no sign of the waves stopping. 

It was dawning on Alex that he’d have to find another way out, once again. He racked his brain. Defense patterns always differed, but always slowed once the army had proven themselves for say, a five minute period. The only exception to this was Drexl’s defense where he fought Gimm.

Look for anything, Alex. Look for a pattern between the two. 

Alex didn’t want to look. He didn’t want this pattern anymore. He ducked around the side of the nearest outcropping. Two more shots, two more droids down. 

The reflection of something to the edge of his vision caught his eye. Sending out two more blasts, Alex caught a moment to look over at the side of the outcropping.  
It was another door. Droids kept blasting his location as Alex ducked back to cover. Hask also sat behind the same area. 

“There’s another door Hask.” Alex looked forward into space, contemplating his options. “I have to go down it again.”

Hask nodded. 

“Come back this time. Don’t just leave us to die again.” She breathlessly turned back to shooting the onslaught of droids. “ And make sure you don’t pin this on our failure again.” She turned back to him for a second, and then was back in her zone. 

Alex took a breath in, blasted a few droids beyond the barricade, and lunged out to where he’d spotted the door. He sprinted over to the door, avoiding fire, pulling up the door and disappearing into the cool mirth beneath. 

He quickly pulled the door down behind him, listening to the shots echo. 

Memories flooded Alex’s vision. Voices were below him, just as they had been before.  
This wasn’t right. It was all just a game to the people who ran the box. They didn’t care about him like Hask or Jovan or anyone else in this school. 

Alex crawled through the air duct, crouching by the edge of the grate, listening to the commanders below. 

“How long do you think they’ll be able to take it this time?”

“Is that kid gone again? He keeps hiding in those doors.” Laughter. 

“Who should we make him fight this time when he gets back? He beat up that big guy pretty good before.”

“Yeah that was quite a show there.”

“What about that girl? The marksman? She’s their second in command I’m sure that would make a good show.” Murmurs of agreement. 

Alex couldn’t take much more of this. They meant him to go hide here, to not take most of the damage, and then fight Hask at the end. Not this time. 

All of a sudden, it dawned on him. No more games this time. I’m going to win for good now. 

Alex kicked out his legs at the side of the wall, freeing the grate from its hinges. He followed the momentum out into the bright room, landing on the floor with the clatter of the metal grate. 

Sounds of surprise echoed the room as the clones below reacted to the newcomer.  
Alex did not hesitate as much. Using his blaster, he stunned the nearest two before any of them could react. The two others stood to fight, lashing out arms, but they weren’t as fast as Alex. 

His vision blurred as he dodged attacks coming at him, and swung around his blaster, firing stun bolts to try to subdue the fight. 

With a swift kick around the side of the last man’s knee, Alex had brought down the room. He settled down, walking over to the control panel. 

There were so many different buttons here, haphazardly labeled, in no particular order.  
Two on the end struck him as he moved seats away, trying to make sense of it all. A green button and a red button. The colors made enough sense. Alex pressed the green button, and looked up towards the viewscreen above the control panel. The lights in the box flickered on green. The droids stopped shooting. All at once, Drexl’s task to survive had been won. 

Alex, satisfied with his work, turned to leave back into the grate of the box.  
However, he felt he wasn’t completely done. He turned back to the consol, and setting his blaster off its perennial stun setting, he shot into the controls for the box. The metal sparked and fizzed, and the monitors above went black. 

No more games. I am done. 

He spun the controls back to stun, and looked around the room. It was too late though, one of the clones had gathered enough consciousness to process what Alex had done, and swept out his legs from under him. He fell to the floor, dropping his blaster.  
The clone picked it up, and shot him with the stun blast, pitching Alex into darkness. 

___

Alex felt the residual tingling in his limbs as he woke up. He was sitting in a hard chair, somewhere. 

What was I doing? Where am I?

The box, the commanders, the clones controlling them, everything came flooding back to Alex.

So he was here to be expelled. Perfect. Maybe he could cut a break from the constant battles then. Maybe his father had been right - that peace was really for the best, that all we had to do was stop fighting, maybe - 

His thoughts were cut short by a whoosh of air behind him. In marched feet, three sets of them. One pair rounded the chair to meet him face on, while two stayed stationed behind him. 

Alex looked up, recognition dawning on him. 

“Admiral Yularen?” Alex blinked his eyes, trying to see if it was just the fuzz from waking up. 

“Young Cadet Kallus. The pleasure is all mine.”

Alex surveyed the room. It looked like he was in an office of some sort, undoubtedly Yularen’s. Two clones stood behind him, guarding the door he guessed. Stun blasts rarely lasted very long, so Alex couldn’t have gone far. He was probably still at the academy, for what little time he had left. 

Alex shifted in his seat, realizing he was completely free to move. If he had been in more trouble, he was certain he would’ve been completely restrained by now.  
Yularen took the seat across from him.

“Kallus I’ve brought you here now to discuss a number of different things.”

Oh wonderful. A number of different things? Ah yes, we found out you hacked our security system, blasted our staff, manipulated your own army, and managed to form a bit too strong of an attachment to the commander of Acklay army. Should we go on Kallus? Is there more we should know, Kallus?

“First and foremost cadet, congratulations are in order. You’re graduating from the academy.”

What? This couldn’t be right. 

“I’m sorry sir, graduating? I don’t understand.”

Yularen sighed. 

“There is, a lot going on in the Republic right now, to say the least. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to keep you up with the news but just this past week, we have discovered a plot that the Jedi had been planning to overthrow the Republic.”

So the Jedi had been traitors all along. Alex knew that he had been right about that. No peacekeeper could ever fight a war. Alex would have his chance to lead now, his chance to win the war, that was why he was graduating. 

“In addition to that, an agent of the Republic has killed all the leaders of the Seperatist alliance. Kallus, after all this time, we’ve won the Clone Wars.”

“So you’re graduating me because we have nothing left to do with our military setup then.” Alex sounded dejected. All his training, all his hopes had been set on this. 

“No, no, of course not, Kallus. We’re still going to be present in the galaxy. You of all people know that peace is unstable - it needs people to keep everything in balance. And without the traitor Jedi, a new form of peacekeeper will come about.”

Yularen spoke with a hope in his voice that was not his own. He was repeating words that had been said to him. But the truth behind them still resonated. 

“The senate is expected to vote all powers to the chancellor today. You must understand that with one governing body, we’ll be able to create a golden age for people? We’re entering a new future, Cadet.” 

Alex nodded, thoughts flying. He was graduating into a new world, one where he’d be able to provide peace and justice. No fighting, just peaceful.

This is what mother wanted. An end to the war where we win, and where peace is promised for everyone. This is her win, not Father’s. Father wouldn’t understand why the war had been brought to a peaceful end now, but wouldn’t have been before. Now, under a unified system, they could truly be free. 

“So what will become of us? What will we do now? We’re soldiers.” Alex had about a hundred more questions, but figured this was the best place to start.

“I’ve been advised to create a new branch of our Navy. We will regulate our new system, and hunt down any insurgencies that will arise within the galaxy. With the chancellor’s guidance, of course. It’s called the Imperial Security Bureau, ISB for short. And Kallus, I’d like you to be my first student.”

This felt like a dream. Had the stun blast really knocked him out that badly? 

“We, of course, know of your incredible slicing abilities. Our security system is one of the best in the galaxy but you, Kallus, you were able to turn it to butter in your fingers. That and you’ve been able to crack the mysteries of The Box, leading your squad to impossible victories. I can’t think of a better ISB candidate. That is, if you accept.” There was a glinting smile in his eye. 

Alex smiled back, genuinely. This was where he belonged. This would be his new home, the ISB. He liked the sound of that. 

“I’d be honored, Admiral.” 

“Well in that case, do you want to come with me to watch the Chancellor’s speech? I’ve been invited to attend personally, and seeing that you have little to attend to here at the academy, I’d like to bring you along.”

“Of course, sir.” Alex stood up, flanking the Admiral as he walked through the hallways of the academy. 

He was leaving. Foreign memories began to seep into the walls as Alex walked out of the building. Even in his mind, he didn’t see himself coming back. 

He absentmindedly hoped he’d see some of his crew walk past, so he could see them off. Say goodbye for the last time. See Hask finally in command of Drexl. Tell Jovan that he had beaten the box, and it had all been worth it. Tell Jovan that he was sorry that they couldn’t have been anything more than Alex’s ambitions.

His world had gotten so much bigger today. He was on the verge of something much greater than himself, and he would lead the charge into it. The chaos beneath the wings of his new Empire.


	11. Enforcer

Alex and Yularen crossed the busy shipyard. It had drastically changed in the years Alex had spent at the Academy, the ships had changed forms, the clones had been clad in newer armor. There were less clones running about the complex now, he noted. Probably, they were deployed out across the worlds, winding down their efforts. 

Yularen made a line over to a dropship, graying and much more utilitarian than the one he’d been flown in on. Two clones accompanied them into the ship, marching with their plastic feet. 

One seemed to notice Alex’s apprehension.

“Can’t be too careful. I’ve heard there’s still a few Jedi on the run. No telling what they could be up to, what with their plot to bring down the Republic and all.”

Alex was still stunned that the Jedi of all people could turn against the Republic. He understood it on a base level - they were peacekeepers, and they had been made into war mongrels by the mechanisms of the Clone Wars. 

The ship lurched beneath them, and they took off, flying into the midday sun. 

The senate building sat as a gleaming temple, with speeders and transports decorating it as stars. He’d never been to the Senate before, but had heard so much about it. It was a corrupt, vile hole to his father, but to those who didn’t pay as much attention, it was a shining light of collaboration. Thousands of systems sent representatives there to speak about issues, and come up with solutions to solve them. 

Alex saw hope within the walls of the senate building. There was something great about the sheer willingness of the systems to collaborate. And with the new Imperial system, there would be strength among the collaboration as well. 

The dropship landed without incident on the platform. Yularen hopped off with the two clones, and Alex once again took the position at his side. 

“The Chancellor will communicate with us a general idea of what is to come, Cadet Kallus.” Yularen leaned down to him, giving him a small briefing.   
“I want you to be able to tell me the bigger picture just based on what he says.” 

So this was a small test. Yularen was testing the waters with what sort of protocol he should have with students, and Alex was fine with that. As long as he succeeded. They made their way through the winding carpeted halls, and were finally directed to a box near the top of the building. Walking out onto the curved platform, Alex’s eyes grew wide. It was hard to quantify in the mind how big “thousands” of systems can really be, but it truly looked like the amount of people in here went on forever. 

They took their seats as a platform rose from beneath the ground below. Gasps rang out through the senate. 

The chancellor, when Alex got a good look at him, looked badly burned, his skin sagging at weird angles. Judging Yularen’s reaction, this wasn’t how the chancellor normally looked. 

_“Citizens of the civilized galaxy, on this day we mark a transition. For a thousand years, the Republic stood as the crowning achievement of civilized beings. But there were those who would set us against one another, and we took arms to defend our way of life against the Separatists. In doing so, we never suspected that the greatest threat came from within._

_The Jedi, and some within our own Senate, had conspired to create the shadow of Separatism using one of their own as the enemy's leader. They had hoped to grind the Republic into ruin. But the hatred in their hearts could not be hidden forever. As last, there came a day when our enemies showed their true natures.”_

The chancellor spoke with a decanter that he was just speaking to one person in the room. It was a personal feeling. The chancellor understood Alex at his core, and his words made complete sense. 

This was why father turned away from his career in this senate. The world has too much faith in my beliefs, and he could never see the other side. Father was weak willed, but I am not. The chancellor is not. 

_“The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed, but I assure you my resolve has never been stronger. The war is over. The Separatists have been defeated, and the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. We stand on the threshold of a new beginning._

_In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society, which I assure you will last for 10,000 years. An Empire that will continue to be ruled by this body and a sovereign ruler chosen for life. An Empire ruled by the majority, ruled by a new constitution...”_

Alex felt a chill with the words. So it was official then, peace was really upon them. 

_“Imperial citizens must do their part. Join our grand star fleet. Become the eyes of the Empire by reporting suspected insurrectionists. Travel to the corners of the galaxy to spread the principles of the New Order to barbarians. Build monuments and technical wonders that will speak of our glory for generations to come.”_

That was going to be his job. He felt the words swirl around him. He was the first chosen for this, he would be the example, he would lead the new generation to report those insurrectionists. And he would travel to the far corners of this world to do it. 

The chancellor’s speech was over faster than Alex could keep track, but he didn’t need to pay much more attention. The powers that were knew their audience enough, and Alex was inspired. 

The war is over. Peace has just begun. 

Yularen still sat listening attentively after many systems had begun to ask questions, but Alex needed to move, to do something other than listen to systems ask what to do with the leftover clones. They could find an answer and then tell him. 

Nodding at Yularen, he ventured out into the corridor. He walked between aliens of all sorts and sizes, trying to name them as he went. 

Bith, Tordorsian, Corellian? Maybe Alderaanian? Humanoid for certain. He picked out bits of conversation. 

“Peace be with us-”

“-all the supplies we’ve accrued? Surely they can’t need it-”

“-hope there’s some sort of force to police the areas. We’re still struggling with our own civil wars!”

“-have to consider the neutral systems here of course! What would we do if-”

Alex leaned up against the wall at the back of the senate tunnels. Most leadership here was just concerned about resources, and rightfully so. 

“-can’t mean that this system is controlled by one person only! How will we manage on our own if the bigger picture has no empathy?”

So there were some voices of dissent. Alex figured they'd let the voices peter out over a few months before he got to them. They could see for themselves what the results were. 

They'd never known peace in their lifetime that they could control. Now that it was here, they needed to adapt to it. 

So the Chancellor's speech spoke to the masses. It spoke to him, but not too the people who didn't fully grasp the end of the Clone Wars yet. There would be many stragglers, but as that one had said, they would be able to hold out hope. 

Pleased with his findings, Alex briskly walked back to the enclave with Yularen. 

Yularen glanced over at Alex, but turned back to the senate proceedings with a glance. Most of the larger arguments had played out already, so now there were just a few scuffles to address. Many of the other senators began leaving. 

“So what now, Admiral? Surely they’ll give the galaxy a few months before our strictest enforcement can bear down?” 

“You’re right, Kallus. There will be strong voices of dissent in the beginning, but they will peter out. In fact, we’ll be helping to thin them out.”

A strong start would show resolve on their end. It would show that they were serious this time with their goals. No more drawn out conflict. No conflict led to peace, and that was what Alex needed. 

“That seems to make enough sense, Admiral, but I’d think that targeting half the Senate would make us seem like quite the enemy.”

Yularen chuckled. 

“We have to ensure we pick our targets carefully, and in order.”

Alex nodded. 

“But the more we wait, the more centralized the voices will become. Right now people speak out because they can, not because they believe it's the right thing to do. Once someone convinces them their reasoning, they identify themselves, only then will we have a clear target.” Alex sat back. “We cannot let ourselves just go about this sloppily. Everything we do from here on out impacts the people’s vision.”

“Then I agree. We give this movement two weeks, see what dies out. See what we can do about anything else.”

“In the meantime, what will we do? I’m assured there’s hardly time for us to sit around.”

Yularen smiled. 

“I think it’s high time we get you on board a Star Destroyer, eh, Cadet Kallus?”

Alex’s heart jumped. 

“Plus I have to recruit a few hundred more ISB agents within that time frame, so you’d better make yourself look good, Cadet.” Yularen stood, obviously done with the senate proceeding. “I’m counting on you.”

Alex stood up from his seat. 

“Of course, Sir. I’ll try not to let you down.”

They walked out into the hallway, back to where their dropship had landed. 

“I’ll have you delivered straight to the Enforcer. I’m afraid I’ll be unable to accompany you, Kallus, I’ve got other people to pick up, other business to attend to.”

The Enforcer? Was that the flagship that Yularen had spoken of?

“Of course, sir.”

Yularen gestured across the shipyard as the dropship took off. 

“That’s the beauty, right over there.”

So it was. The great arrow-shaped ship hung in the bay, lightly floating on its repulsor lifts. 

The Enforcer was beautiful. Designed to the highest specifications of form and aerodynamics, she was one of the highest capacity ships in the Republic fleet. 

The Imperial fleet, Alex corrected. He smiled at the thought, the sheer joy of the end of the war encompassing him once again. 

He would explore new worlds on this ship. He would see the peace ushered in across the galaxy. He would finally, finally get to leave Coruscant. 

The dropship came about the side of the ship, dropping off Alex and the two troopers. He jumped the gap to the loading platform. All around him, people rushed about, unloading crates, pushing new ones onto the dock. It was all a rush of motion around Alex as he walked towards the entrance of the ship.   
The Enforcer was huge, and especially so close up. The troopers escorting him punched in their code cylinders, and they were on their way in the belly of the beast. 

The walls held a familiar gray tone to the walls of the Academy. He ran his hand along the cool metal, glad to be back in an environment he could control. 

The trooper to his right turned back to face him. 

“You’re being summoned to the bridge, Kallus.”

Alex nodded, looking down as his commlink showed him directions. 

“Very well. I’ll see you around, gentlemen.”

He turned towards the corridor to his left, following the flow of the ship. He could feel a slight rumble beneath his feet. It was almost comforting, knowing that this thing was capable of movement on its own, and that it was working. It would take some getting used to, but Alex knew he could. He was ready for this next step.   
He turned again. Left. Right. So many corridors, more than the academy had ever had. And at odd angles, shifting with the shape the ship made. He passed by the hanger, which stored more of those wide winged fighters he’d seen walking out of the complex with Yularen. 

TIE Fighters, the back of his mind provided. Twin Ion Engine. Fastest little ships in the galaxy. He turned down another corridor. Windows out to the late evening of Coruscant. The last sunset he’d see for a while. 

Alex paused for a moment, letting the last light of the sun catch against his face. He closed his eyes, breathed in, and continued on. 

Finding the elevator, he ran his cylinder through, and made his way to the bridge. 

The doors opened to a wide space, with windows running along the sides. Yellow light seeped in. 

“Ah! You must be one of the new agents for the Imperial Security Bureau.” A tall, older man with white hair briskly walked over to him. “I’m Deputy Director of the brand new ISB, Harus Ison.” He stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Agent.” 

Alex returned the handshake. 

“It’s Alexsandr. Alexsandr Kallus.”

“Well, Agent Kallus, welcome aboard. We’re setting up our new operations here until we can establish some sort of regular base on the core world, but in the meantime! We’ll be bringing on many new cadets and officers to help get our effort started.” He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. 

“We’ll get you stationed down below, give you an office space and the like, get your training assigned to you. And of course your assignments and all.” He pulled out a datapad and typed out what seemed like a few sentences. “ISB-121, Agent Kallus. How does that sound to you?”

“Very good, sir.”

“Very good indeed! Walk with me.”

Ison walked past Alex to the lifts behind him. 

“Your credentials here are quite impressive, Agent Kallus.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Top of your class in education and physical training? Wonderful marks. You’ll make an excellent ISB agent. Tell me - aren’t you just elated with the end of the Clone Wars? Finally, we have our chance to chase down the last of the Separatists. Scrape them out of their little trash heaps, and squish their presence down to what it should’ve been originally.”

Alex found Ison’s wording a bit aggressive. 

“Director Ison, I am elated with the end of the war. Now, all we have to do is find our insurgents and make sure that they cannot have a platform to speak.” 

“A scalpel, Kallus, is much better at politics than a war.” Ison turned around, facing a large door on the side of the hallway. 

“This is our hall of justice. Arrive here at 0800 every day or earlier. Early is on time. On time is late. And late is unacceptable.”

He held up his cylinder to the door. 

“Bunks follow to your left. So do washrooms. But this! This is where we will make our magic happen. Together.”

The hangar door opened out into a large area, filled with desks and holo tables. There was a quiet bustle around the area as troopers cleaned off the surfaces. 

“Tomorrow, Alex. Tomorrow you step into a greater world.”

He headed off, turning right out of the door, presumably back to the bridge. 

Ison looked over his shoulder once more. 

“Oh, and liftoff will be at 0800 tonight. Just in case you wanted to see it.”

Alex smiled. 

“Of course, sir. Thank you for showing me around.”

Ison left the hanger, and Alex turned to the left, paging into his assigned room. 

No more common rooming. He was an Agent of the Empire now, and he had his own bunk. He almost wished he had something to decorate it with, thinking back to his old room where he’d grown up. He was in these ships now, he was one of the ones in the army posters that he had up. The walls of the starship would be enough decoration in young Alex’s opinion. 

He sat down on the bunk, pulled out his holopad, and set to work reading about his next assignment.


	12. Coruscant

Alex never saw any of his other ISB classmates on the ship, although he knew that about a hundred of them existed. His work revolved around tracing comments on the Nets, figuring out which was information on the actual rebels and who was just a parrot account. His role wasn’t much in terms of action, or on field duty, but it was integral at this stage of the new Empire. They had peace now, but they needed to maintain it. There was war brewing in every corner if you looked hard enough. And Alex was there to help make sure they never happened. He fed his information to the upper decks of the Enforcer, and they chose what to do with it from there.

Alex was in his element, pulling apart the strings of the public, putting them up on the wall, and following them. Although this was his livelihood, Alex missed the action of the box, and on field duty called to him. 

A few times, the Enforcer had made a jump to another planet to address some sort of issue, but Alex never left the ship. He wasn’t permitted to, and he had more important work to follow up with beyond the scope of a planetary surface. 

Currently, he was following the trail of a large group of inner rim rebels, hoping to gather supplies and forces from nearby worlds. They weren’t finding much luck, and were leaving a trail thicker than an asteroid slug’s slime.

There were a few outposts he had his eye on, most notably on Onderon and Coruscant. 

Alex had tried to stray his efforts away from Coruscant. It was too close to home for him. And he already knew who was leading the insurgency there, without even needing to track anything down. 

But it drew him in. It was the capital city, a bustling core of greed and corruption, especially towards the Empire. And that needed to be snuffed out first if they were to ever help the rest of the galaxy. It was the key to the rest of the inner worlds. So, he was set to working on it. 

In between work sessions, he rapidly consumed the media the Empire was putting out, finding truth between the heavily written sentences. 

Although it wasn’t his task specifically, he had been a part of some of the great Seperatist propaganda purges that the ISB had gone through in the first few weeks of the Empire’s existence. His issue of the ISB Loyalty Manual was worn to the edges, dog-eared, and has a few bumps in the spine. Alex liked it that way. It showed that he was making the effort, that he was climbing his way towards understanding his organization more. There was so much to take in, just from the beginning. At first Alex had been skeptical of a few of the more outlandish ideals that the Imperial system was trying to propagate, but as books changed and handbooks were passed from hand to hand, the ideas changed. Why should we have to learn more than one language? Why do we use more than one currency? These ideals made Alex’s job easier. Any language that wasn’t basic pointed to a rebel somewhere. 

There were reasons that humanoids were in charge of the government, he mused. These alien species didn’t possess the capacity to think as far ahead as the Empire did. 

He trained physically in a few of the Imperial Army classes, practicing how to use force to his advantage, and how to throw your enemy off their rhythm. Alex found that a few well placed words were more powerful than any punches he could make. He used that to his advantage. 

He was rising in favor with his commanding officers every day, and looked to be on a path to graduate fully into the field soon.

Alex sat behind a screen, tracing messages across boards, decoding some Shyriiwook to basic. He sighed deeply, resting the side of his face in his hand. 

He’d been virtually isolated from the moment he’d boarded the ship. 

In fact, the only person he had consistent contact with was Admiral Yularen, and he hardly considered him a friend. 

There was no Hask here, no Lee or Cordin, not even someone like Kell to train. And no one been worth his time like Jovan had. 

Of course, that meant there was no Gimm and his cronies, but it didn’t lessen the blow. 

Alex spun around in his chair. 

“Agent Kallus! We’ve found something.” A storm trooper to his right called to him from a screen. 

“We traced this signal, heading from Onderon to Coruscant.” The trooper hit play on the audio as Alex looked across the line from Onderon. 

“- meeting place, at,” there was a burst of static, “the old- ‘ex’s Diner, level 5-1. At 2100 next month-.” The message cut out. 

Who else could that be? Onderon to Coruscant? Old Republic meeting place? It had to be. 

“That has to be them. Thank you trooper.” Alex held out a data stick, and stuck it into the port against the machine. 

“I’ll alert Yularen at once.” 

“Alert me of what?” The familiar sound of Yularen swung through the room, echoing through the door. 

“Admiral, Sir.” Alex snapped to attention. 

“Yes, Agent Kallus, what have you found?”

Alex turned to the readout on the screen. 

“Sir, I believe I’ve found the location of the next meeting of the insurgency in the core words.”

Yularen smiled. 

“Have you really? Incredible. Play the message for me.”

Alex hit the button as Yularen squinted his eyes. 

“I figure we can get a squad on the ground to look into the location this was received at, and then deploy enough people in the next month to find the specific date.”

Yularen nodded. “Or, we could just send one person down, to save some effort on our part.”

Alex looked up, confused. 

“With all due respect sir, I don’t think that one person could effectively trace this data to a single source within the month.”

Yularen chuckled. 

“You’re right. None of my current field agents can. But you, Agent Kallus, make a strong case for being able to.” 

Alex smiled. 

“In addition, I have a meeting with a new Navy prospect from the outer rim, wild space, and if you could tag along with us that would be wonderful, Agent.”

Alex tilted his head questioningly. Normally that would just be routine procedure. 

Yularen noted this, and turned to lean on the console. 

“I do not yet… Trust this new recruit. He’s inhuman, Chiss to be exact.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. 

“I need you to watch him. Try to make sure that he isn’t, you know. Some thing we can’t trust.” 

Alex nodded in understanding. He was to ensure that this man was not a traitor to the Empire. He could do that while also searching for his group of rebels. 

It was a test, as all things were, but given his skills, he wouldn’t find it very hard. 

“Very well Admiral. I await your orders with great interest in this opportunity for the Empire.”

He gave Yularen a smile. 

“Very well then Agent. We leave tomorrow. Your specific orders are available on your datapad,” he paused, clicking something on his wrist, “- now.” 

Yularen turned briskly, escorted by the storm troopers he’d come in with. 

Alex threw a few of the files into his datapad, and then returned to his room. After all this time. After an extended excursion in space, he was going back to Coruscant, of all the wild places in the universe. 

He looked over the mission brief and crawled into his bunk.

I am going to run into Father there. I’ve run halfway across the galaxy now only to go right back to him. Maybe it’ll be nice, maybe we’ll sit down and have dinner and I can ask him what happened to me. Why he did everything inside my head? And we can laugh like we are civilized people in a peaceful time. Imagine, if father did not insist on rebelling against everything thrown at him. Given war, he fought. Given peace, he rebels, he still fights. And now it’s up to me to enforce peace. 

I will be able to do this. I will be able to face Father, and not say anything. I will get him to tell me everything the Empire needs to snuff out his rebellion. 

You are the reason I will never know peace in my lifetime father. You, and everyone across the galaxy who are not compliant. Who refuse to believe in the Empire.  
The side of Alex’s face brushed his pillow roughly. Over the past week, he’d grown in a sizable bit of stubble. Not enough to quantify a beard, but by the time they got to Coruscant, he would be unrecognizable to his family. They held sixteen-year-old Alex in their memory, not the scruffy looking twenty-one year old that stood in front of the mirror across from him. 

The beard would cover enough recognition of his face to go unnoticed in a Rebellion meeting. He decided to keep it for utilitarian reasons.

Alex drifted into a restless sleep as the hum of the ship shifted into the calm of hyperspace. 

___

He met the morning with the resolve of a hardened field agent. Sometimes pretending was the only way that he could get through not knowing. 

He fastened his chest plate over his coat, and donned his official helmet. 

Alex set out a brisk pace to the transport bay where Yularen would surely be waiting for him. 

He turned corners he didn’t know if he’d seen before, rounding bends that seemed to be at every intersection. 

He came to a halt at the wide hanger doors of bay six, just as the message had said. He ran his cylinder through the door, throwing the two pieces of sliding metal back. 

Huge walls and higher ceilings adorned the hanger. A white ship sat in front of him, top fin coming halfway up the expanse of the room. Yularen stood with an attachment of storm troopers, discussing some unknown business that was none of Alex’s. 

Alex crossed the empty hangar with care. 

“Admiral Yularen.”

“Ah, Agent Kallus. Thank you for being so prompt.”

Alex nodded as Yularen shifted his gaze to the belly of the ship. 

“Come along now, we’re going back to a place that should seem a bit familiar to you.”

Everywhere was familiar to him was on Coruscant, and the Admiral knew that. Alex knew he was being intentionally vague; he’d learned how to do that himself based on Yularen’s example. 

They proceeded onboard, flanked behind them by the set of stormtroopers. Alex absentmindedly wondered if these were clones or the real humans that the Empire had been so keen to recruit. He listened to their gait as they walked. Definitely different from each other; so at least one of them was human. Probably both of them, if they were out of rhythm. 

Alex sat across from Yularen on the ship. 

“We’ll be dropping off at the Academy first, to meet the Chiss. Goes by Thrawn.” He pushed a message to Alex’s datapad. The blue skin of the alien glowed on the screen in front of him. 

“His translator is Eli Vanto, another Wild Space denizen.” He pushed another readout to Alex. “He’s at least human. They’re both incoming from Myomar Academy.”

Alex scanned the datapad. 

“You’re to determine if they’re cut out to be Royal Academy Recruits.”

Alex huffed at the thought. Really? He was a recruiter now? 

“I know it’s not the most typical way to… honor your skills. I think you’ll understand when you meet him.”

With that Yularen sat back. 

“I’m going to still need time to explore the message I intercepted, Admiral. Promise me that you will make time for that?”

“It is assured, Agent. I wouldn’t have brought you along solely for recruiting. I know you’re onto something.”

There was a hint of pride in the Admiral’s voice. Alex knew he wasn’t the first agent to venture out into the field, but he was among the select few. Now they just had to figure out if he would stay there. 

And of course they’d chosen his first mission to be in his homeworld. Against his greatest fear. 

_Kallus, Kallus you hutt-lover come over here! Lecture us with your peaceful ways! Show us how you are redefining peace in this galaxy. Come set an explosion here, pacifist!_

Taunts from his early school days rung in his ears. The ISB knew how integral his father would be to this mission. They needed to know that he didn’t have that attachment anymore. That he was capable of overcoming whatever he had with his father. 

Alex _was_ capable. He told himself that. He argued that every moment he had conjured up father since he’d started this inner-world investigation.  
The sounds of the shuttle pilot entering the atmosphere rang out. They were cleared for landing. 

The shuttle tilted as they turned in the atmosphere, preparing for gravity to take hold during their reentry. 

Alex caught a glimpse of the wide expanse of the world below him. How small it looked. How could it be that this was the place where he’d spent most of his life, where he found himself crossing so many strings together? It was a miniature. It felt unreal as the buildings grew taller and more familiar. 

With a pang, he found his thoughts wandering to the time he flew over Coruscant with Jovan. He pointed out the buildings in his head to mirror the memory. 

The Senate. The Academy. No more Jedi Temple. No more Jedi. 

Times had certainly changed, and so had the landscape. More places flew the red and black banners of the Empire than had ever flown the flag of the Republic. 

The Academy, even under the dress of new banners, managed to look the same. Clone trooper statues converted to storm troopers, but ships still flew from the hangar. Alex let out a sigh as anxiety built up. 

Who would be here now? Surely they’d graduated some of his old friends. He felt a pang of nostalgia. Back when he was allowed to have friends. People he interacted with, people he trusted. People who loved him. 

Kell was certainly still here. Hask might be, but she of all of them was probably gone. It dawned on him that he didn’t really have an accurate specification of his friends’ ages. He knew he'd graduated ahead of schedule, and that was about it. Jovan might still be here. Alex hoped he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure he could handle that encounter. 

Another dark thought carried him out of the ship and out onto the courtyard. If Hask was still here, Gimm and Orbar still would be as well. And they were hardly the welcoming type. 

Alex took a breath and rationalized. He’d been training with the Imperial Army, and knew his hand to hand combat skills would vastly outpace any academy student. Not to mention that Gimm certainly wouldn’t be larger than him anymore. He had finally topped off growing at a solid six foot four, which towered over most of his opponents. Gimm would find a similar fate. 

Alex smiled. He had taken on the Academy and won. He could walk in to do some light recruiting. He paced himself alongside Yularen, watching as the young cadets marched in their platoons, stiffening up as the pair marched past. Alex took pride in it. His ISB uniform told enough of the story to them. He was what they all wanted to be. 

They walked through formerly familiar walls. Alex kept his gaze forward, but occasionally spotted a ghost of his past.

Was that- of course not. But that? Nope, not Cordin. Not Kell. Not anyone. His nerves were getting on his nerves. 

Yularen led him towards the middle of the compound. 

“We’re going to test his skills in The Box, aren’t we Admiral?”

Yularen smiled. 

“Yes Agent. For once we will be the controllers of their destiny.”

With that, he pulled at a gray panel in the walls, one that Alex hadn’t even seen. If asked, he simply would have assumed it wasn’t there before. 

He stepped in, and Alex followed, closing the hatch behind him. 

“Gentlemen.” Yularen gave a curt greeting to two formally dressed officers inside. 

“Yes sir.” Their response was rigid and formal. 

Alex gazed around the room, spotting the air duct in the corner. He smiled. 

“We’ve got our two cadets coming in now, hallway five. Take us up.”

The screens overhead lurched and switched to a blank box, two doors on each side. 

“Do we want to set the terrain randomly?”

“No, Officer. Keep it flat. Minimal coverage.” Yularen held the back of the chair in front of him. “Here they come.”

At Yularen’s words, Thrawn and Eli entered. 

“Run them through a standard two-behind scenario.” The officers punched in buttons and levers, and on screen, two droids rose from beneath the floor. 

He had seen this before. It was highly typical. They would pass this round. Alex busied himself reading the profiles Yularen had sent him earlier as the two fought the box. Nothing special to note. Eli was three months from aging out of the Imperial Academy, but Thrawn was completely new to the system. Looking up at the screens, it didn’t seem like it was any issue. Thrawn was surprisingly about to expertly wield the blaster, adapting to the droids as he saw fit. 

Probably needed these skills in Wild Space. Developed from a wild area, needs some extra defense skills. It made enough sense to Alex. 

Two in front, two behind. Thrawn turned quickly, sideways to both. He called out to Eli in a language Alex couldn’t understand, and they adapted together. 

More and more droids swirled around them. Thrawn and Eli dispatched all of them. 

“Well, I’d say they’ve about passed now, eh Admiral?”

Alex cut in.

“No, officer. Keep them coming. When they start to falter, send me in.”

There was a pause in the air of the control room. 

Yularen nodded.

“Do as he says, officers.”

The two nodded, and adjusted the dials higher. 

Droids appeared, and kept appearing. At first, Thrawn and Eli held up, but after a few minutes, it was clear they were overwhelmed. Eli fell to the ground with another wave. 

“Agent Kallus, you’re on. Hallway four, if you please.”

Alex nodded, and turned to the outside of the room. 

He crossed to the hallway nearest to him, pulling the blaster from his belt, setting it to stun. 

The wall opened up, and Alex stepped back into the controlled white of the box. 

The walls closed around him in a rectangular lift, rising up to the floor. 

First, his head peaked out into the quiet room, alerting its inhabitant of his presence. Twice, Alex had been on the receiving end of this. He understood Thrawn’s mentality. He needed to get this across without telling him what the secrets were. 

The blue alien Chiss was much more of a vibrant blue in real life. His eyes shone red in contrast, giving him an unearthly vibe that Kallus had not been ready for. 

He steeled himself. There was nothing this alien could do that he wasn’t ready for. Kallus brought up his blaster. 

Try to unbalance him first.

“So you’re the alien we found at the edge of the galaxy, Thrawn. What were you? Cast out? Hoping to find a new life here in our Empire?”

The calls rang out in the room. 

The Chiss answered slowly, calculated, and much cooler than he’d expected him to run.

“Yes, officer, I was found at the edge of the galaxy. You know as much, given your briefing here, but you obviously lack the insight into the situation. Your Empire took me in and saw value in what I could tell them, unlike you.” 

Kallus listened as Thrawn worked out what he could possibly know. This man would make a great ISB agent, even without training. At this point, Kallus made his decision. An alien this smart was a danger to the empire. It was everything the ISB Manual warned against, and he was being tested against it now. 

“Well then, Cadet Thrawn, I’m certain we will take that into consideration as we figure out where to assign you.” Alex lowered his blaster. He no longer needed a physical test of confidence against this man. Now, he just needed a deep conversation with Yularen. 

“Where _you_ will assign me? You don’t mean to tell me, officer, that you have complete control over my situation? You may think that so, but of course, there is so much to consider in matters like these. I hope that you will take these into account.” Thrawn lowered his weapon. “Kallus, is it not? The school still buzzes with your heroics. I would not take lightly to a reputation such as yours being smothered by letting someone such as I go free from your program.”  
Thrawn was using his way of words against him. He was simply better at it. Simply better at lying. 

He knew my name. 

He could’ve gotten that from anywhere. From Yularen himself for all I know. 

“Understood, Thrawn.” Alex turned to walk away from the encounter. “You will note that whatever decision this comes to, it will have run through my hand. And you can believe whatever outcome you would so like.”

He pulled open the hatch on the side of the wall, and left the box without a trace.


	13. Ghosts

Alex was pacing. 

“Admiral, I am having conflicting feelings over admitting Thrawn.” He brought his hand up to scratch the stubble beard on his chin. “He seems almost too smart for the program, but he would be one of the first pure aliens in it. Maybe we could change a way that the Empire looks at them with him. But at the same time, sir, can we risk it? Where do his loyalties lie?”

Yularen sat in his old office, hunched in thought.

“I think we have to put him in, Agent Kallus. I really don’t think the Empire has a choice.”

He is a threat. He will destroy me and everything I’ve worked for. 

“What of Eli? His translator? How do we keep them both together on the track?”

“Ah. That, Agent Kallus, is the key.” Yularen sat straighter up. “If Thrawn can test out in three months at Eli’s graduation, then we will admit him into the Imperial Navy. Easy.”

The gears in Alex’s mind turned. The plan was near perfect. It was a true test, and it would prove that Thrawn was to be respected by whatever branch of the Navy he was thrown into. And it kept him in the Navy, far away from wherever Alex would deal with.

“It seems fair enough. I agree, Admiral. Admit him.”

Admiral Yularen paused and punched in a few keys to his datapad. He looked back up at Alex, sighing. 

“You’re free to bunk here with the officers. I know you have a mission to get yourself on with though, Agent Kallus, so feel free to roam. Your codes should get you far enough around here. And your credits should find the rest.” Yularen smiled. “I assume you can get to the officer’s bunks for the night then?”

“In theory, Admiral. I will get there.” Alex turned and walked towards the door. 

“Agent Kallus?” Yularen called out. “Thank you for your help today.”

Alex nodded. He gave him a slight smile. 

“Of course Admiral.”

Anything to keep your favor. 

Alex paused at the door, looking out into the hallway. He held the door frame and used it to swing himself out into the dusky lighting of the evening in the Academy.

He had never been down the way of the officer’s corridor, mostly because he’d purely never needed to go there. It was where the clones had slept, where the commanders and teachers had made their lessons for the next day. 

Each room held a single occupant, so they were small, and stacked very close to one another. 

He glanced down at his comm. Another left. Bunk 121. Alex sniffed a smile of amusement. Of course Yularen had given him a bunk to match his code number. He smiled and walked in. 

He shook his head from his helmet, feeling his hair dampen with the parting. The sweat he’d built up during the day got trapped there more easily than he would’ve liked. The buckles on the back of the chest plate wore similarly damp. Alex decided that he’d better find the refresher before he drifted off to sleep for the night. 

He shuffled through the corridors again, looking for the telltale white glow. 

Everyone had gone from this corridor by now. It was too late to be up for any sort of good business. There wouldn’t be any students in this section anyways, so Alex abandoned his constant search for anyone he’d know. He had half a mind to go looking for Drexl army, but found he couldn’t do it. He was here on official business only. He wasn’t here for some reunion, no matter how much he wanted to be. The ghosts of the past would remain unseen.

Light at the edge of the corridor caught his eye. He turned into the fresher, rinsing his hands and hair in the sink. 

The sound of the water echoed around him silently. It was peaceful enough, after a day’s worth of thoughts ringing in his head. 

What if he had chosen wrong? It didn’t seem that Yularen had been fully testing out his answers. It seemed more that he was truly confiding in him. What an interesting situation it all was. 

“Alexsandr.” A toned voice rang out from the doorway. A form had stopped in the doorway. Alex’s heart stopped for a second as he turned. 

Jovan. Here. Ah, _force_. 

“You’re still here Jovan.”

“I had to see for myself if the rumors were true.”

Alex reached to turn off the sink and dried his hands. 

“I suppose my original departure was a bit unceremonious.”

“Unceremonious? They graduate you a whole year early after you directly disobey them? And you do not think we were speculating? Alexsandr, we thought you were fully gone.”  
There was emotion wavering in his voice. Alex could pick up on it now, and he knew. He knew Jovan had taken his disappearance personally. 

I’d promised to help him, and then I abandoned him. Of course he hates me. He has no reason not to. 

“I thought I was too. Frankly I feel like I have been.”

No further explanation. I don’t need to open up to Jovan like this, I can’t risk it, I can’t risk my position here. 

Again.

Jovan sighed. 

“Acklay’s in first now. We finally beat out Drexl for the spot last week.”

“Congratulations.” Alex stood silently, responded cooly. 

“Alexsandr, what have they done to you? Who are you now?” Jovan’s voice was hardly a whisper. 

“How did you find me here, Jovan.” Alex sought to change the subject. He just wanted this conversation to be over. His feelings about Jovan had always been convoluted, and he couldn’t bring himself to go through this again. 

“News travels fast around the Academy. I heard you were back, figured you were an officer now, wandered the halls enough, kriff, Alex, a bantha could figure that out.”

“I- I‘m sorry Jovan.”

The small confession sparked in Jovan’s eyes. The man slowly walked over to the sink next to Alex, and leaned over on it. 

Alex couldn’t decide if his proximity was bothersome or, quite possibly, better than any outcome he had imagined. 

“A simple ‘hey I’m fine! I’m working as a special agent now, don’t worry about me’ could’ve worked wonders for your friends, Alex.” Jovan took his accent down a few notches to imitate Alex’s voice. It got a slight smile out of him at least. 

“You know I couldn’t do that Jovan. I have to keep my prestige, my rank. I have to be in control of how we go about this or I’ll lose everything I’ve worked for.”

Jovan pulled back a few inches. 

“You’re still the same as always then, eh Alex.” He looked disappointed. He was. Alex knew the words would hurt him, just as the sentiment had before. 

Could he live with that? Could he take another instance where he denied what he so clearly felt? 

Alex pushed himself back from the sink. 

“At least walk with me back to my room, Jovan. I’m afraid I’ve lost touch with the corridors these days.”

He hadn’t. But if it gave him more time to be with Jovan he would take it. 

Jovan looked away. 

“Of course, Alexsandr.”

It would’ve been so right to fall for him, he thought. If they’d just been normal people, living out their lives on Coruscant, they could’ve been different. 

Could I have found it in my heart to love Jovan? Could I allow myself a second where I wasn’t serving something else? I’ve become a train of inertia, rumbling towards what I work for. I will not make stops along the side for people that come into my life like this. I can’t. 

But even trains make stops sometimes. They slow down. They let people on and off. Maybe he needed to slow down. Let some people get onto his life. And let some of his weight off.

Jovan _cared_ about him. It was more than he’d ever had in his entire life.  
The pair ventured out into the hallway, a bit more weary of the weight they held together.

“I’ve missed you Jovan.” Alex almost regretted saying it, but he knew he had to. If not now, then when? 

“I know.” There was no edge to his voice. 

Jovan had to know what he was going through. Alex never thought that his experiences with the Empire would apply to more than him, if he was being honest.

He’d thought about his friends often in the past few months, but none of them more than Jovan. And now that the man was in front of him, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. So he stalled. 

“I’m investigating a slew of insurgents here on Coruscant for the next month. It’s my first real field training assignment, and of course they’ve dropped me here of all places.” 

"So you'll be graduating out of there soon then too, eh?" 

"Yes, probably. I don't know. I hardly plan these types of things." Alex smiled. 

Jovan looked at him, eyes flicking to the edge of his face. 

"I hate what you've done with this." 

"Oh, stars, this thing?" Alex reached up to feel his somewhat scruffy face. "It's for the mission! The mission Jovan! I'm going undercover!" 

"And what, plotting rebels can't see that pretty face of yours, Alex?" 

"Well ah- no. They can't. This one's for Imperials only." Well right now at least it was. For Imperials only. For Jovan only. 

"What does Acklay think you're doing out this late at night anyways?" 

Jovan shifted. 

"They've gotten used to it." 

"Oh." Alex paused."You're still looking for the secrets of the box then?" He tried not to wonder what else Jovan could get up to late at night. Jovan tried to think of an excuse.

"They've certainly made it harder since your little escapade there. It will come to Acklay when our time is right. When we profit from what we deserve." 

Another long, silent pause. They rounded the corner to Alex's hall. 

"Jovan… I…" Alex trailed off. This next sentence would take courage. "I'm sorry, Jovan." 

He looked up as Alex stopped to lean on the door that led to bunk 121. 

“You’ve said that already Alex. For what?” He paused, his arm flying out in front of him. “For the long walk that I’m inevitably going to have by myself back to the command bunks? The mouse droids I’ll trip over? My sore toes tomorrow morning?” Jovan laughed, but Alex continued, giving a slight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. 

"Jovan I-I'm sorry I couldn't find you before I left. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. Jovan it's so many things…" Alex felt himself holding back his emotions. 

Sadness? Anger? Something bigger he couldn't quantify? Sure, all of it was surfacing now. Great.

"Alexsandr, stop it. You know I would've done the same. You know any of us would have." Jovan took the side of Alex's face in his hand. "Our duty to power is far greater than the bonds we make while we're here at the academy." 

Alexsandr felt a hot wave of emotion prickly over his skin as he felt Jovan’s words seep in through his hand on his face. They were skirting dangerously close to things they’d never managed to talk about. 

"But don't you ever wish it wasn't? Jovan you of all people remember before where we were here. Normal kids don’t behave like us." 

“We’ve never just been normal kids have we, Alex.”

“But do you think about it?”

"As if you were still a commoner, and I would still be in the high rises of Coruscant's elite? And now how the only way I can make it is here, becoming a commander, becoming important faster than anyone else? If so then- yes. All the time, Alexsandr."

Jovan made eye contact with Alex. It seemed the world stalled, electricity between them hung light in the air. 

He leaned over to Alex's face, closing the distance between them, pushing him against the door of Bunk 121 with the anger of the kiss. 

Alex melted into the force of it, his lips parting at the slightest touch. He caught himself, one hand on the edge of the door, the other across Jovan’s side, pulling him closer. 

Jovan tugged at his hair, moving his hands up the side of his face, feeling the coarseness of the stubble against his skin. His lips left Alex’s for a second, tracing his collarbone, his neck, leaving marks that would absolutely show above his collar tomorrow but _kriff_ he didn’t care at this point. No more Commander Kallus to slow him down. 

Alex nosed back down to Jovan’s lips, meeting them again with a breath and a sigh. 

“Alexsandr,” the word left Jovan’s mouth as just barely a whisper. “Alex, you know this is hardly a clear-minded decision.”

Alex looked up, nuzzling the side of his face, holding his hands behind Jovan’s back.  
“Does it matter? Does anything matter here?”

Jovan looked down at him, meeting the distance again, kissing him lightly. 

“How long are you staying around this time, Alex?” He still cradled his head, ghosting his lips over Alex’s jawline, up to his ear. 

“Just until the morning tomorrow.” Alex took the opportunity to bring his mouth over to Jovan's ear, taking a slight nibble at the lobe. 

“I’m going out into the field here, I can’t be seen traveling back and forth to the Academy. It’d make me suspicious.”

“All the power the Empire has given you and you’d give that up to appear as a commoner to obtain information? The ISB certainly is a place I’ll never begin to understand.”

Jovan pushed him back up against the wall next to the door, standing over him, arms against it. Alex's heart jumped as Jovan took the lead here, foreheads pressed together. 

“Soon I will leave this wretched place and begin to rise the powers that be in this galaxy as you have, Alex. It’s only a matter of time before I age out of the program or these fool commanders break me. We will see each other again, in time. If you want to come find me, I’ll be there for you.”

They were loose words, but Alex clung to them with his life. He felt his heart swell as Jovan kissed him again and again, tracing circles with his lips. 

They slowed for a second, and Jovan pulled back, shaking his head with rational thought. 

“I really should start to head back, Alex.” His voice was small. 

“Jovan wait, wait here for me. I don’t really want to be alone.” Alex pulled him back, tugging at his collar. But Jovan was set, stronger than he ever had been. 

“You as well as I know that we cannot make that happen, Alex.”

“You could sleep here.”

“If there were any fairness in this universe I would be.” He shook his head. “And you’d be gone, graduated, or still here in _Drexl_. Anywhere but the officer bunk here.” There was a sense of bitterness in his words that Alex hadn’t heard before from him. He stood back up fully, pulling himself away. Jovan smoothed out his hair before folding his arms across his chest. 

“Believe me, I know much better than you just how precarious my position is.”

Yes, Commander Jovan. Alex knew the words would bite, so he held his tongue. 

“Just add it to the long list of things you were right about so we can move on.” He pleaded with Jovan. He really needed him more than he’d let on. His emotions fell in waves as Jovan sighed, and started to turn away. 

Alex caught him by the shoulder, and brought his lips to Jovan’s once more. 

“I will find you.” Alex promised. This wouldn’t be the end for them. 

“I know.” Jovan looked him up and down once more, and turned away. Alex let him go, and slinked back into his room.


	14. The Cantina

Alex was knee deep in the underbelly of Coruscant. He was in CoCo Town, the Collective Commerce District, and it was absolutely crawling with filth. His back was aching as he sat in the crowded cafe, listening in to alien conversation. He was working as a part-time server at the local Cantina. It was the best option to listen to everyone that came through, but it left his back sore and hands callused at the end of every shift.

And even after all this time. No new information. All just muddled whispers of wanting to join the resistance but not really knowing if they’d get to do anything before they were sent to mine spice on Kessel. 

These people were living peacefully, although in fear. It was for the best, if it meant that there was no more war. 

The underlevels had always been somewhat uninhabitable. Alex knew that, everyone knew that. Their situation, if he had to guess, had improved with the lack of war.

Now Alex sat, scanning local radios, playing with the shaky free connection he’d managed to grab from the storefront next door. 

It was growing late in the day. The circadian rhythm of the darker levels had originally been very off from the consistent light changes of the Enforcer and the Academy, but he had adapted. Longer nights, shorter days. The people needed more excuses to spend time and cantinas than the Imperials did. And so, with the night, the crowd started filtering in. 

Alex stood from his seat, heading back into the kitchen. He grabbed an apron from the side hooks near the door, and caught a slight glance in its mirror. 

A disheveled, dust covered man stared back at him. The Empire would hardly recognize him. His beard has fleshed itself out, wild. He hated the lack of control, but he needed it. A citizen looked back at him. An insurgent. Well, he hoped. If he ever got wind of it at least. 

He shook his head, and made his way to the kitchen. 

_“Sasha! If ya even think of being a second late I’ll have yer head on my desk!”_ Alex smirked the call of his boss from behind the counter. His codename Sasha had been his choice, an early childhood singsong nickname his mother had called him before they’d settled on Alex. Mostly because it was easier to spell. 

“Sorry there Dexter.” A large besalisk turned around. 

“Ah, just get those nerfburgers out there, I’ll cut ya easy this time.”

Alex picked up the tray nearest to him, saluting Dex as he got out. He waltzed across the dining room with great agility, distributing the food, but more importantly, listening in to the customers’ conversations. 

“-I heard that she got sent to Kessel as soon as they caught her-”

“But did you hear about Lasan? Heard there’s a huge uprising-”

“-yeah and I heard that Askii had personally got it on with the chancellor himself - you’re full of bantha fudu Saba-”

“Senate’s fallin’ apart these days. Kriffin’ galac’ic Empire’s gonna be the death of us all-”

All typical gossip for the cantina. Uprising on Lasan was new, but nothing Alex needed to worry about now. If they were hearing about it now, the Empire had certainly already taken care of it. 

But nothing new about Onderon. Nothing new about the inner-core rebels. Alex sighed, going back to the kitchen for a new round of orders. 

___

The night was longer than most nights. Alex knew that he was getting closer to the end of the month, when he’d have to go back empty handed to the Empire. He wanted to go back, of course. That was his home. But something tugged at him here, made him listen closer, feel the vibes of the room more. It was the thrill of being on the hunt, knowing that something was here, and all he had to do was discover it. 

Groups were petering out of the cantina, and Alex sat at the bar in the center, watching them. 

Dexter shuffled out of the kitchen to the bar. 

“Sasha, night’s over, you can head out now.”

“There’s still people here Dex, night’s not over yet.” Dexter’s words from the “orientation” rang in his head. 

“Aye yeah, and once a month, we let some kids stay at night for a meeting, we let 'em have the place.”

“Seems like a liability.”

“Sasha, Sasha, ‘course it’s a liability, but you see,” he smiled a great toothy smile, “they’ve got the credits to pay up.”

Alex allowed himself to smile. 

“What do they do here?”

“Mostly just, they… They don’t want to be caught by certain… Imperials. Let’s jus put’ it that way.”

Alex’s eyebrows shot up. 

“They’d probably letcha listen in as long as ya, don’t say anything of course.”

Alex nodded. 

“You know me Dexter. _Don’ be speakin’ to any customers about their business now. That’s theirs to fig’re out, not yours_.” 

Dex burst out laughing, clapping Alex on the shoulder. 

“You get it! Ya got me, kid.” Dex stood and turned back to the kitchen. “Bartend for ‘em or somethin’. Get ‘em water. They pay enough for it alright.”

Alex nodded, laughing slightly. Once Dexter was gone, his smile fell from his face, growing solemn once again. This had to be the insurgents. Sitting across from him, in his own workplace. Two younger kids, an older Twi’lek, a Dressellian. A Quarren walked in while Alex was wiping down the bar top. Dexter turned out the kitchen lights behind the bar, and Alex was enveloped in the gentle shadow of the room with the growing crowd. 

A few more humans breezed in through the unlocked door, but they were greatly outnumbered by the alien population at current. 

It was smart. At first, they just wanted to appear like a late night cantina dwelling, with all the wrong sorts of people. Then, they bring in the humans, the real people who were in charge. Alex worked it out in his head as more aliens showed up to the meet. That, or they were just more manipulable to fall for some sort of revolution. A few Ugnaughts. An older looking Duros in a cowboy hat. More humanoids. 

In a span of a mere fifteen minutes since Dex had left, the cantina was at maximum capacity. Alex filled a few glasses of water for the people at the counter, keeping his face out of the direct light. 

For all he knew, this could be just a weird gambling ring. What would they bet on? Loth-cat fighting? At least maybe one of these underlings would have some insurgent info. Snippets of conversation lent themself to nothing useful. 

The night grew younger, and with another fifteen minutes, it seemed the building was bursting at the seams with people. Alex had found himself a dark corner and a don’t-talk-to-me kind of face as people packed into the main bar area. 

One flicked the lights, and the bar area thinned out, with room for a few people at the center. 

So this was a gambling ring. Were they going to fight?

But Alex knew he was wrong, especially when a shadow of a man of familiar build pushed his way through the crowd, making his way towards the circle in the room. Alex was just tall enough to get a glimpse of him. 

Father. 

“Settle down, settle down everyone! We have things to address.”

His voice threw the internal balances Alex had kept for so long. He grabbed the wall next to him for support. Every word his father said hit him in the chest again and again. 

Come on Alex. We have things to address. 

He hit a button on his commlink and thumbed a simple record function. Should be enough. 

If I ever want to listen to this more than once... Maybe I’ll change the pitch of the vocals. Maybe I’ll be able to hear the words separate from their speaker. 

But Alex knew it wouldn’t be possible. This was his father. Who else would speak these words. 

“Everyone. We’re gathered to discuss our efforts to inhibit the Empire’s efforts from the core worlds to the inner-rim.” 

A quiet shuffle of claps and cheers rang out. 

“We’ll start with our order of business, we’ll first start with our operations on Coruscant, move to a few more inner-core planets, and then head to the inner-rim.” Father looked to the sides of the room. 

“Are there any other things we wish to discuss here?” 

The crowd stayed silent. A few hands went up around the room as Father gestured for them to speak. Alex tilted his ears, trying to catch the quieter information. 

“-And what of the shipments from Onderon?”

Father nodded gruffly. 

“We will, of course, be addressing that when we cover our operations, ma’am.” He turned back to the crowd. 

“Are there any _real_ questions now?” Hands went down. Alex scoffed. Father hadn’t changed his ways at all. Give him power and all he cared about was himself. 

“No more questions? Good. Let’s get on with it.”

He brought up a holomap of Coruscant, and started to go over points of interest. Alex took mental notes, finally glad he was able to record all of this information. 

“We wouldn’t be anywhere in this operation without the help of the rebel contingency on Onderon, so we do thank them for ferrying our weapons, and providing us strength. In return, they have asked for our assistance trying to be the first planet to suceede from the Empire.” Fear rose in Alex’s eyes, then determination hardened inside of him as raucous clapping filled the room. If Onderon was where the rebels sought to converge, that was where he would be. 

___

Alex transmitted the full recording and set himself to head back to the Academy for pickup the next morning. The people that had filled the bar minutes before had petered out, going their separate directions. Alex stayed under the guise of cleaning, sweeping up, taking away glasses. He watched as his father talked to people in low whispers. Those people soon left too though, and Father stood, walking over to the other side of the room, into a corner. He walked out with two other figures. Alex stared. Mother and another child. Alex desperately wanted to call out to her, but ducked behind a post to give the space the illusion of privacy. 

“-are you not worried you’ll see him there? How will you react if you see him? I know you don’t want to talk about this, but you have to consider that you might have to fight through our son to take this rebellion further.” Mother’s voice washed over him. She cared immensely about him still, after all this time. She still loved him. Father turned around to face her. 

“Then I will kill him without hesitation.” 

Alex let out a silent gasp, fear pooling in his eyes. He was grateful that this time, his family couldn’t see through his weaknesses. 

All this time to heal, and his father still couldn’t figure out a way to love him. 

Mother sighed. 

“He isn’t the same son that they took away from us so long ago,” His tone chided mother. Of course he wouldn’t be the same. That couldn’t change what she felt for him. 

And I suppose it couldn’t change Father’s opinion of him either. 

The younger child cooed from his mother’s arms, waking up from her light slumber. Mother shifted her weight to put the girl down on the floor, holding her hands as she stumble-walked across the floor. 

With a whoosh of the doors on the front opening and closing, Alex was alone again.  
He let a single tear well up in his eyes before returning the broom to the kitchen and heading home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extra! chapter! friday!


	15. Lawbringer

Alex headed back to the Academy early that morning, much to his distaste of not getting quite enough sleep. He’d left most of his gear back there, so getting onto the transport was more of a slogged commute than any show of power. 

He’d left a note with Dexter, proclaiming that he’d gotten a job off-world on Alderaan, and was headed off this morning to start a new life. In a way, he somewhat was. 

He watched Coruscant wake up beneath him softly as the public transport took off. Lights turned on as the sun peaked its head across the horizon. A droid at the front commanded the ship, beeping lightly at various control towers. 

Alex closed his eyes, listening to the sounds, feeling the early rays of sun hit his face. It was perfectly soothing. It was nothing like the next few months would be. 

His time on the Enforcer had really gotten him to appreciate sun rises. A tell tale sign of a new beginning. No lights to bring him out of sleep, just the lazy rise of the sun. 

Deep in this state of mind, Alex almost missed his dropoff point near the Academy. He thanked the droid up front, and disembarked.

The morning was cool, but already alive with people. There were many more stormtroopers around the area than last time he’d been down here, but he’d expected as much. Peace required enforcement. 

The tall spires of the Academy started to peak out from behind the taller buildings around him, and Alex felt at home. 

Entering the building was a bit more of a hassle than he would’ve liked, being that he forgot his code cylinder and looked very disheveled, but luckily, they were able to put Yularen through to come get him. 

“Agent Kallus! Well, you certainly look like a mess there.”

Alex shook his head. 

“The only thing that’s a mess right now will be the insurgents state of affairs.”

Yularen tilted his head inquisitively. 

“I got it, Admiral. I have the information.” 

Yularen nodded with understanding. 

“Well then Agent, freshen up. Debrief me when you don’t look like,” Yularen looked him up and down, “all of this.”

Alex smiled. 

“Of course, sir. Be there in ten.”

___

In the end, Alex decided to keep the beard. It would be a pain to grow it out again if he ever wanted to go back to investigate this insurgency further, and it added a bit of style to his life. He trimmed away the ragged edges though, cleaning up the sides of his face.

His reflection in the mirror stared back, a hard Imperial agent. Successful in the field. Ready to take down the insurgents that wanted anything but true peace.

Alex shrugged on his helmet and made the short trek to the Admiral’s office. His armor was heavier than he remembered. 

Yularen was waiting for him, tablets and all, as they tracked the rebels next movements. Some of the meeting’s information had been intentionally vague, but using it together they could trace the next attacks. 

The meeting had been sloppy. Alex guessed that the rebels were desperate for people, and were willing to just take people off the streets for strength. Up to and including people who might be affiliated with the Empire. Their loss. 

“It all hinges on this shipment.” Yularen pondered the information out loud. “What could they be hiding there?”

“Where’s that shipment scheduled to come from?”

“Onderon. Looks like just a metal and supplies run.”

Alex thought back to the meeting, connecting strings in his head.

“It’s a weapons shipment. It's the key to all of this, Admiral.”

Yularen nodded.

“Onderon was under Seperatist control for years, even before this. It’s no wonder they’d be the center of this insurgency.” 

“They said that there was a larger contingency of terrorists there, we’ll have to act swiftly, and with force, if we are to snuff out this spark.”

“Yes, Agent Kallus. I’ll have to send some of our best troops. Or rather, you will.”

Alex turned inquisitively towards him. 

“Sir?”

Yularen smiled.

“Congratulations, Agent. You’re graduating from the training program.”

Alex felt pride build up beneath his chest. 

“Thank you.”

“It’s the least I can do for now. You’ve unearthed more in this program than anyone else I’ve trained so far. I’m proud of you, Agent.”

Yularen began shutting down the larger screens. He was proud of Alex. He'd done enough of the right thing to get Alex to trust him. Now it was time to prove it. 

“We haven’t really done ranks here, and I don’t really intend to, but I can move your number down if you’d like. How does 71 sound? ISB-071, Agent Kallus. It has a ring to it.”

“Of course sir. I’d be honored.”

“Yes, you would be. I’ll need a list of 36 soldiers on my desk by midnight. We’ll bring them onto the Lawbringer tomorrow, and you’ll be out to Onderon by the end of the day.”

Alex glanced down at his holopad. A list of stormtroopers appeared, with data on each. Shot percentage, rank, year. 

Yularen paused at the door. 

“Choose wisely, Kallus. You’ve got one shot at this.”

The door shut behind him, punctuating the remark. 

Alex sorted the list by shot percentage, to try to get a better understanding of who he was dealing with as options. 

His eyes flew wide as he read the first few names. 

Hask. Kell. Scroll down a few more. Lee, Cordin. Jovan. 

Alex felt something building up in him. Anxiety? Fear? Excitement? 

He put Hask and Kell on the mission. He trusted them. This mission was important, and he knew he had to trust his team. Lee and Cordin went on next. 

Agent Kallus avoided clicking on Jovan. He did not need distraction. Couldn’t need distraction on this particular mission. It wasn’t his place. It could never be. 

He sorted next by year, looking at Box rankings, tying those across to shot percentage, and gathered his next ten soldiers from that. 

Finally, he sorted by academic rank. Alex needed people that could think on the fly, but he also needed people that knew things he couldn’t process, like how their star destroyers worked, engineering, those types of things. The rest of the platoon was ready. They’d have to trust him. And he would be responsible for them. 

Alex could lead them, he was sure of it. 

He glanced over the list another time, and sent it off to Yularen. 

___

The Lawbringer was set out similarly to the Enforcer, but a bit larger, and a bit more uncomfortable. Alex swore that the day/night cycle that was programmed into the ship was off in terms of his working hours, but he couldn’t prove it otherwise. Time seemed to move slower here, forcing him to sleep less, work more. He assumed he’d get used to it after a few days, but the first two were atrocious. 

But Alex was going to have his people. He wandered through the twisting hallways of the star destroyer, making his way to the bay where his platoon was arriving. He’d polished his helmet, his boots, everything. He had to look the part of a hardened ISB agent, he had to make sure these people would trust him. He set his jaw, and turned another corner, almost running into another form. Alex reflexively brought his hands up, guarding his face, while the other man stumbled to the floor. 

“Watch where you’re walking-” the form looked up, “Oh, Agent Kallus- I’m so sorry, please continue.”

Captain Hiram Zataire. Weak willed, easily manipulated. Just the captain Alex needed to run the Lawbringer himself. 

He stared daggers into the man. 

“What were you doing down here, Captain?”

“Ah-ah I was just going to find you! Agent. I w-was told to tell you that your platoon has arrived. You see, we were set to meet them together and-”

Alex nodded, holding out his hand to cut him off. 

“So we will go to meet them, Captain.” He made sure the captain caught his cold eyes. 

Zataire nodded quickly, and turned to face the opposite direction. 

They walked down the cold corridors of the ship, Alex clicking his boots a little louder than normal to set Zataire on edge. He would appear as weak, giving Alex the upper hand in this briefing. 

They quickly came up on the hanger bay, opening the door to find a full platoon of stormtroopers waiting for them. Alex stood at the front, gazing as the lights reflected off of the polished white. Four squad leaders stood at the front, wearing the orange and black pauldron that set them apart visually. These were his Commanders. 

They parted into two squads on either side of him as Alex walked through the rows, inspecting each trooper. He didn’t know what for, it just seemed like something he should do. Maybe he was seen as spot checking their gear. Maybe he was looking them down, testing resolve. Or maybe he was just pacing. Alex smiled slightly. He decided he was pacing. 

“You all will be assigned bunks here on the Lawbringer. Your commanders will brief you with your assignment after I speak with them. For now, all troopers are dismissed."  
Alex paced back up to the front of the line. 

“You four are with me.” Alex held a smile in his chest. Did they know who sat beneath their helmets? Did his friends know that this was who they were working with? 

He marched them over to the strategy briefing room, a holotable sunken into a bowl of a room, as they gathered around the table. 

As soon as the door closed behind them, Alex breathed a sigh of relief. 

“It is so nice to see you all again, guys. It- it’s been so long.”

The commanders looked across the room at each other, as Alex put things together. They did not know. So he’d be in charge of the reveal. 

“Okay troopers, drop the game, helmets off for briefing.” 

And there they were. Hask. Kell, Lee, Cordin. Their surprise was as evident as Alex’s joy in seeing them again. 

Stammered ‘hellos’ and yelps of joy filled the room. 

“-Hask! How have you been!-”

“Kell! Drexl still on top of the-”

“Cordin! How’s the fight going-” Lee threw a few fists at Cordin’s armor as they laughed. 

Alex smiled. 

“Hask and Kell, meet half of my quadsters, Lee and Cordin. And for you two-” he looked at his original quad mates, “These two are the reason Drexl managed to top the leaderboards for so long.”

They smiled at each other. Alex’s hopes rose. 

“Alex-” Hask turned back to him quickly, “How did you manage this? Where have you been? Literally everyone at the Academy thought you’d be mining spice on Kessel by now.”

“Slow down, slow down Hask. Yes, you’re here because I was able to convince Admiral Yularen that I needed the troopers with the top four weapons scores in the entire Imperial Army, which was very hard, I assure you.” He laced his voice with sarcasm at the end. “And of course I’m alive! Promoted even! Look at this, I’m Imperial Security Bureau material here.” He laughed. 

Alex had never felt more at home. Here were his people. 

He began explaining his mission. He told them of the intercepted transmission, the meeting the rebels held, the importance of Onderon. Their purpose, finding the leaders, bringing them back to the Lawbringer to stand trial. Bringing peace to a troubled world. The trick of the matter would be to find and destroy their outpost of weapons. For this, Alex had broken up their platoons, bringing the squad leaders with him to scout out areas of interest. His team nodded. He played to their strengths, and they knew it. Once they’d found the weapons, whoever was making or selling them, they’d demolish them with a permit to take down the building for infastructure reasons. Well, more specifically, Cordin would set charges for an explosion. They smiled with relish. 

Fully understanding the general workings of the plan, they broke off to tell their squads, and prepare them for their arrival on the troubled world. 

Lee, however, stayed back. She stood at the table still as the others walked out, leaned casually against the counter. 

“Alex, wait.” He turned around, confusion welling in his chest. 

“Why is Jovan not with us, Alex? You must know. Of all of us.”

Alex swallowed heavily, breathing out of his nose. 

“Jovan wasn’t available. He’s far too busy off trying to _earn_ his own position.” 

Lee looked down.

“Wasn’t available, or wasn’t available for you?”

Stars, even after all this time, Lee still knew him. 

“Listen, Lee, having Jovan on this mission wouldn’t have been good for me, er- us. Any of us.” Alex looked away. 

“Alex, whatever you’ve got going on, it’s between you two. I don’t care what he did or didn’t do to you, but you have to understand that he’s only after power here. And right now, you’re the most powerful person he’s got a direct connection to.” 

Kallus knew that. He’d been telling himself that. Jovan wasn’t really attached to him, just his number, his rank. But Alex couldn’t accept that. Jovan had been one of the first people he’d known to actually care for him, and that had to mean something. 

“Well he’s not with us now, Lee. It’s not our place right now.” 

“Just think about that though, Alex. I don’t want you over-romanticizing our friend because he makes googly eyes at you.” 

“I know Lee.”

“And you’ve got a good squad here Alex. Jovan won’t be the last one to love you.”

“That’s why I brought you here. All of you. I need people who trust me, and who I trust.”

“Of course, Alex.” She snorted a laugh. “These kids’d follow you to the ends of the earth if we had to.”

“Hey Lee? It’s good to have you back.”

Lee punched him in the arm playfully. 

“Where would you be without me, Alex?” She smiled. “Now let’s go before your troops think we’re making out in here or something.” 

Alex rolled his eyes, but brought himself up from leaning on the door. 

“Come on, Saabe. Let’s get moving.” Lee carefully secured her helmet again, and headed out the door. 

“Right away, Agent.” 

Alex smiled. No hostility in the title. He could get used to that. Just respect, comradery.

He looked out the windows adorning the hallway as Lee walked away. They’d exited hyperspace, adrift by the planet Onderon. 

Alex was excited. There was nothing that could stop his squad now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pictures taken seconds before disaster


	16. Onderon

When given the briefing on Onderon, Alex figured that “warm, temperate climate” would be a manageable temperature, like Coruscant, or aboard a ship. He did not expect _temperate_ to be a literal jungle. 

Sweat clung to everything on him. He felt like even his helmet was sweating. 

The crew had joined the Imperial outpost station inside the walls of the capital city Iziz. Alex stood outside in the shade of the building, examining a map of the city one of his scouts had brought him. 

They’d spent the last couple of days searching the city on patrol, following slight leads to the weapons manufacturer. With this map though, this scout had finally located it. Alex nodded as they relayed more information to him - routes to take to avoid the rather unstable rebels in the area, which munitions they recommended. That sort of thing. 

“You’re absolutely positive this is the location the Coruscanti rebels were referring to, trooper?”

“Without a doubt, sir. They’ve got shipping orders all over the place, and their production line is louder than a loth-wolf’s howl.” 

Alex smiled. 

“Very well then. I want my squad leaders here, on the double.”

This was it. Prevent the weapon from falling into enemy hands, prevent the war. It made sense to Alex, and he was proud that he could help out. 

“Alex, you really had to call us out of this great old air conditioning into this _kriffing_ heat, I swear this better be good.” He heard Lee’s exclamations before he could see the squad moving towards him. He opened his eyes, adjusting. 

“Oh _of course_ , Lee, I’ve just summoned all of you out here because I was _lonely_.” 

“Hear that Lee,” Hask was chiding him, of course. She’d picked up on her insults with much more fervor than Alex had ever seen. 

“Our _agent_ has had too much time to himself out here. I think we’d better get back _inside_ to help calm down Agent Hot Head over here.” 

Hask looked up at him. 

“Really, it’s because you’ve got all that insulation on there! I don’t see why you’ve had all that carpet on your face this whole time.”

The squad clamored over to the shade where Alex stood. 

“Aw really Hask? I’ve been growing quite attached to it as is. Would be a shame to cut it off now.”

“Alright boys, cut the chatter. Let’s get going on this new info Agent Hot Head’s got for us.” Cordin smiled up at the group. 

Alex sighed. So this was the hill he’d managed to die on this time. 

“We’ve found the weapons factory here. We’re going to go on a routine patrol to set a scheduled demolition of an old, derelict building.”

Alex took out a hololens, projecting the permit. It gave the Empire permission to destroy the building, deeming it unsafe, structurally unsound. 

Cordin looked up, across the hololens Alex was holding. 

“Yes, Cordin, you do get to blow it up.” 

“Awesome.”

“Alex, let’s grab some scouts from the bay, they’ll be able to help us traverse the city.”

Alex nodded. 

“Good point Kell. We’ll alert them now, and meet them when we head out. Are there any further questions?”

None. Good. 

Cordin went to go get their bag of explosives, while Hask, Lee, and Kell followed him to the scout troopers. 

“So what are we up against this time? Bunch of rebels all coming at us at once? Our troops scattered across the field as we try to take a point? What kinda droid mongering-”

“Lee. This is a routine patrol.” Alex leaned down. “We are not going to be blasting anything except the weapons factory, clear?”

Once they were done with this mission though…

Alex let the thought trail off in his head. They’d probably be pointed to the leader of Onderon’s insurgency after this. They’d arrest them, bring them to justice, and move on to the next planet. It was the life that Alex had dreamed of at the Academy. Fighting alongside his friends, ensuring that there was peace throughout the galaxy. Onderon would be over soon, the weapons factory was just the first step in that direction. 

The commanders approached the bay with the scouts, ready and armed for their patrol.

“Agent Kallus, sir. We’ve got five of our best waiting for you, ready for patrol.” Alex nodded. 

“Of course. Thank you, trooper.” The five fell in line as Cordin caught up, slung with thermal detonators. All nine of them were ready. Alex led them across the yard, to the wall, where they were let out into the city. 

Walking through the city with a full squad was always a treat. It made people look up and watch with awe as the power of enforcement strode past them in a very real sense. People could see for themselves the force of the Empire as Agent Kallus and his troop walked through their city. He could see the looks on their faces as they turned away from him, hiding suspicion.

Just a routine patrol here, citizens. Nothing for you to worry about this time. 

Large, inhuman aliens sat in corners, fangs protruding out of their mouth. Their business was their business, but Alex found it disgusting. Even the thick heat of the day couldn't make Onderon’s inhabitants look better. He knew that his armor showed he could hurt them if they looked at him the wrong way. And they were right, Alex thought. Their fear had its place. The Empire had done well in that regard. There was no peace without fear. 

The squad rounded the corners to the abandoned manufacturing sector of the city, perusing the derelict buildings. 

One of the scout troopers came up to Alex, flanking his side.

“It’d be there sir.” 

Alex nodded. “Then let’s check it out.” 

The squad moved under Alex’s command as he brought them up the building and around the side, staring into the windows. 

Sparks lit up the darkened building. 

“Kell, get me a scan of the insides.”

Kell popped over to the window and held out a small device, that soon projected just as their intel had indicated. It was the weapons factory that they had discussed on Coruscant. 

Alex nodded. 

“Cordin, I’m going to need you to set the charges. Scouts, help them out.” Alex descended the steps from the side of the building. “We’ll hold down the fort from the front.” His heart hammered inside his chest. 

There was nothing to be worried about. This was routine for them. There was enough fear from the locals that nothing would stop them. 

And yet. Something was off. Something just didn’t feel right about the situation, and Alex could feel it. 

It was like the box all over again, but there was no other solution, there was no other way out of this that he wanted. He pushed the feeling down into his stomach. 

He turned back to the team, circling up around the outside. 

Alex held the readout in front of him, looking at which of the detonators had been placed and activated. They’d make the detonation when they were back in the safety of the Imperial complex, but Alex wanted to make sure he had tabs on all of them before they left. 

Across the wide space of the road, Alex caught glimpse of his team coming around the other side of the building. All clear. 

The scouts and Cordin jogged back to the central location Alex had gathered his troops.

“All clear, Agent Kallus.”

Alex nodded, just as the first blaster bolt took out one of the scouts right next to him. 

Red bolts rained down on them from the derelict buildings.

The troop jumped into action, dodging fire from all over. 

“Get to cover!” 

Alex ran back towards the weapons factory. Blasted insurgents had found them out here. He loaded his weapon, firing at the rooftops where the rebels hid. Hask stood next to him, sniping rebels from the rooftops as precisely as she could. 

They were outgunned, outnumbered, but not yet outplayed. 

We need to blow this factory. We need to prevent these weapons from leaving Onderon, at any cost. 

Alex pulled out his comlink. 

“Everyone, move away from the factory. We’re going to blow it anyways.”

Hask looked over from next to him with understanding, and started to run back from their cover. 

The shots could find them more easily now. Another scout went down behind them. Alex looked back, realizing he couldn’t save him.

“Cordin, now!” 

A huge explosion rocked the industrial sector. Alex was flung into the middle of the road with the force, knocked out. Hask, Lee, Kell, and Cordin all landed near him, similarly out of it. 

Cordin sat up, trying to blast away rebels that were coming closer by the second. 

Alex tried to process the events, brain foggy, darkness seeping in.

No. 

Why would they do this to us? This was routine, we were just executing the demolition orders in their eyes.

He tried to get up, forcing his legs to move, his arms, but he couldn’t move. He must have been hit by some sort of stun blast. He tried to call out to his squad next to him as they got up, blaster bolts filling the smoky air. But it wasn’t enough. They were tired, injured, and they fell to the ground in pain from the explosion. Eventually, the blaster bolts stopped, and his friends still stirred. They had just surrendered. Let us tend to our wounded. Alex let out a sigh of relief. 

Through the dust and smoke, he was able to make out an approaching form. Inhuman, hulking. Ears wide and pointy. Fanged teeth managing to glint through the smoke. Yellow-green eyes pierced his soul as the creature swept the landscape. Alex never thought he’d be privy to see a Lasat apart from the texts and holos he’d been trained on, and he never wanted to see one again. 

Kell sat up next to him, reaching for her blaster once more, fighting with exhaustion. Her arm trembled as she made a few feeble shots that the monster easily dodged. In a few quick steps, the lasat picked her up and threw her back in front of Alex. Kell blacked out completely, but was still alive, breathing despite the blood running across her face. 

Stop. Stop doing this. She can’t even defend herself, and all you’re doing is beating her to the ground. I don’t care that we were attacking you, we had no casualties to you in doing this, stop. 

Please. 

The monster picked her up again like a rag doll, forcing her into the ground with a sicking crack. He unhooked his blaster and shot her twice. 

Alex wanted to cry out with the pain he felt for Kell. She was still young, still learning. He’d trained her himself, and there she was. Dead. 

The Lasat made his way over to Hask. Alex’s eyes grew wide as he realized what this would come to. A massacre. 

He couldn’t bear to watch, but heard as Hask cried out for the last time, in pain. No blaster shot, just the sound of torn flesh. Claws raking across things that Alex didn't want to process but did anyways. 

Time didn’t matter any more. Three close ranged shots for Cordin and Lee. Other sounds. Beaten across the road and couldn't defend themselves. Those kinds of sounds.   
All of them, his whole squad. Alex forced himself to breathe through the block in his chest. It came through in waves, pants, fear laced every heave he could manage.   
The Lasat turned around, locking its bulging green eyes with Alex’s trembling golden ones. 

Dust swirled silently around the monster as he made his way over. 

“Little Empire thinks they can take whatever they want, eh, _Captain_.” The Lasat slowed his walk, chiding Alex as he was frozen fearfully to the spot. 

He didn't know his rank. Just knew he was in charge. Probably had never even heard of ISB.

“Oh you’ve just _kriffed_ up big time haven’t ya? Lost your whole squad huh? Isn’t that just dandy.”

The Lasat smiled while he unsheathed his claws, already covered with the blood of another one of Alex’s squad. He shuddered at the thought, taking a shaky breath. 

“Whatever I do to you is going to sting far less than what your people will do to you.” With that, the Lasat sliced across the skin of Alex’s close arm. 

Alex cried out in pain. 

End this already, end it all. 

“And besides, the rebellion could use a few more useless agents such as you, _Captain_.” 

Using his over hand, he slashed at the skin across Alex’s chest. The pain was worse this time, deeper across him. Burning with every second that went by. His arm dripped into the ground beneath him. 

“Pathetic Imp. That’s what you are.” He leaned down to Alex’s ear. “And we’ll need more of that if we’re ever to succeed here!” He laughed, and delivered two more slashed across Alex’s arms and chest. 

Alex cried out again, trying to resist, trying to hold on to something, but he couldn’t. 

“Figure I'll let you live, just to watch you squirm.”

The Lasat backed away. 

No, please. Kill me now. 

He smiled, fangs protruding out of his mouth at odd, inhuman angles. “ _Good luck_.”

Alex sat panting, writhing in pain. He knew there would be someone to come get him, or he’d bleed out before he could get a word in in his defense. 

He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see this landscape anymore. He didn’t want to look up to see Kell’s body, broken in front of him. He didn’t want to envision the Lasat tossing her against the ground over and over again. He couldn’t help it. The smile haunted him as he passed out, lying there bleeding on the sweltering dusty ground. 

___

There was black for a while. The world spun. It felt like he’d developed a second skin made of prickly sweat. 

Gray lights. Droids above him. The sting of bacta. The smile of the lasat, sharp and toothy. 

Back into the void, spinning.  
___

A lighter gray came this time, fading to white above him. 

Focus here. Steady. Can’t get into this thing too fast. 

He moved an arm, flexing his fingers one by one. Even doing this, he felt the sting of scars on his upper arms. Bacta patches moved against his skin. 

Movement fluttered in the corner of his eye. He felt a rush of adrenaline, but his limbs were sluggish, he couldn’t turn in time, he was too late to- 

Save himself from the medical droid coming over to check on him. He heard his heart rate beep unexpectedly fast as the droid settled in. 

“ _ISB-071 Agent Kallus, how are you feeling?_ ” The metallic voice of the droid did little to comfort him. He was feeling atrocious. 

“Good, thank you.”

“ _You took a beating down there, didn’t you, ISB-071 Agent Kallus?_ ”  
Yes, he did. More than a physical one. He swallowed, thinking about Kell. Lee. Hask. Cordin. He snuffed out their screams in his head. 

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“ _Your bacta should be set by the evening tonight. You’re set to be released tomorrow morning. How are your muscles? ISB-071, can you move your fingers properly?_ ”

Kallus gritted down his teeth and raised his arm. The pain he could handle. He would grow used to it. 

“ _Very good! I’m sure with results like this you’ll be out of here in no time. Is there anything else I can get you?_ ” 

His mind ran. I’d like a month more of sleep. I’d like to tear that Lasat to pieces. I’d like to tear those rebels to pieces. I want my friends back. I want Hask to walk in and tell me everyone survived. 

He knew those things wouldn’t happen. Kallus was, however, quite a bit thirsty. 

“Just water please. For now.”

“ _Very well. Thank you, ISB-071._ ”

As soon as she was gone, he felt himself falling back into the darkness, the screams of his friends, the claws of the lasat tearing his skin, and then nothing. Darkness once more.

___

He sat up for the first time the next morning. Painfully raised his arms to sip from the glass of water. Stood to dress himself so that he could be dismissed. 

Kallus insisted he was fine, and needed no further examination. His scars were healing, physically. 

And of course, he’d never been better mentally. They had, after all, completed the mission, he reminded himself. The weapons were gone. The Coruscanti insurgency was on their own. 

Much like him. He pushed that thought away.

Kallus’s comlink was beeping. Probably had been for some time. He pressed the button.

“Agent Kallus. You’re wanted in Admiral Yularen’s office on the bridge ten minutes ago. Hurry it along.”

So he was back onboard a star destroyer. How interesting. How long was I out of this?  
He turned and marched himself across the hallways with great effort, noticing where his arms swung with a wince of pain. He noticed he was carrying his helmet, and managed to put that on before getting in the lift. It hid some of his larger grimaces, at the very least. 

He stumbled off the lift in a haze, trying to distinguish which star ship he was aboard. Was it Lawbringer? Was he still orbiting Onderon? Or was he back on Enforcer with Yularen and the ISB team? 

Kallus couldn’t ask. But he could find out later. 

He made his way towards where he thought the commander’s office was, arms unmoving, trying very hard not to move his core in any sudden way. 

He ran his code cylinder through the slot next to the door, and headed inside, grateful that it was indeed Yularen that sat across from him. He took a seat with careful movements, trying not to appear as if he was in pain, and clearly failing. 

“Agent Kallus.”

“Admiral Yularen, sir.”

There was a cold tone in his voice that Kallus could sense, even while in his dazed state. He was floating around, insides in turmoil and yet, perfectly calm. 

“Your report for the Onderon investigation is late, Agent.” 

Kallus tried to process, slogging through his brain. 

“Admiral, I’ve been in the Med Bay, I don’t know anything more about Onderon than what the cleanup crew probably already told you.”

His eyes threatened to close on him. He gripped the sides of the cold chair for strength.

“The cleanup crew told me very little. That there was an explosion. That the rebels got away. That you, Agent Kallus, were found barely alive, surrounded by your troopers, who were all dead.” 

He gave in to closing his eyes. He found nothing but despair there, he saw them laying out around them. He heard the explosion, but this time they all kept running. If he’d given the order a second later than he had-

“The cleanup crew told me, Agent Kallus, that you were responsible for the deaths of these top notch soldiers. That you were leading them in a squad, that they were relying on you, and that you were weak. That you fell into a rebel trap and managed to save yourself, but not the eight others that were yours.”

Kallus just sat in the chair, looking down, eyes closed. 

“You were too soft, Agent. You have caused us to fail this mission.”

Kallus was still. He managed to open his eyes, and tuck his arms under his chin. 

“Kallus,” Yularen took down his tone here, bringing his tone to a personal level, “I’m just disappointed, that’s all. Here I’m touting you as the best of the best all over to my superiors, but then you go and lead our people into this kind of massacre?”

The words sounded hollow to Kallus. He could think of worse things to say to himself in Yularen’s situation. He began to. 

“Have you nothing to say in your defense, Agent?”

He looked up at Yularen. 

“We did, by all means, prevent weapons from reaching Coruscant.” His words came out gruffly. Cooly. No hint of defense. Sheepish. 

“But at what cost?” Yularen sighed and returned to his seat across from Agent Kallus. He continued. “We have since dispatched the seeds of rebellion sewn into Coruscant, following your leads, Agent. We have nothing but to thank you for that.” Yularen fiddled with one of the knobs on his desk. “There will be no more rebellion in the inner core, not now, nor ever.”

Kallus didn’t want to process these words, so he took them at face value. 

The rebels I met with in the cantina will stand a fair trial, and then serve time in the Imperial prisons. Father and Mother will live to take care of their child. They will be fine. I will not hold myself responsible for any more deaths today. 

The information weighed on him. It became heavy, and sunk into the pit he was already welling in. 

Just another thing to slice into later. Confirmed death counts on his only family left. Stars, this was really going his way.

“In the meantime, you will continue your slicing work from here, Agent Kallus, while we prepare you with more tedious field work training, since you were so obviously incompetent at your first pass.”

He nodded, the dull throb of a headache starting to form at the back of his head. 

“I’ll send your next assignment your way when I get it. Do not continue to prove a disappointment to me, Kallus.” He paused, calculating. “Or you will meet a similar fate to your namesake.”

It was meant to be Yularen’s final blow. Kallus didn’t want any more of it. 

“Of course, sir.” He stood with a great amount of effort, and turned out of the room, back to the bustle of the ship. Kallus took the lift out, turning away from Yularen’s room. 

It occurred to him he still didn’t know what ship he was on. It didn’t matter. He was Agent Kallus, ISB Agent 071, and he could find his way anywhere, even when he was hopelessly lost. He set his comlink to a path from his datapad, and started to follow. A cold room met him at the end of his trail. Kallus drifted into it, sitting on the edge of it, alone in the dark. 

He sat there, empty thoughts pouring into his head. 

He had no one now. He was the last of his family, of anyone that had known who he really was. 

I have to make my own name in this galaxy now. Let my own actions replace what is dead and gone now. The pacifist never made a mark on the galaxy, and nor did Alex alone. Agent Kallus, ISB-071, that is who will make enemies tremble at the sound of my name. The rebellion will know who I am, and fear me just as much.


	17. Lasan

It had been three months since the raid on Onderon, and Agent Kallus had proved more than useful to the Empire since then. He continuously tracked the Onderon rebels, forcing their connection to his projects. He tied strings from investigations that had gone cold to current operations. He quickly made it clear that he was an indispensable asset to the Empire, and that was, under no circumstances, affected by his performance at Onderon. Agent Kallus was unmoved. 

His investigations had led him aboard many other star destroyers, picking apart systems string by string. He wrote security and broke it handedly. 

He studied personal combat. He would not be brought down so easily again. He studied the Lasat culture, the recent uprising, and managed to tie it to the now-full-fledged rebellion on Onderon. 

He was a natural choice for the Empire to send to Lasan when the outbreak got out of hand. 

Lasan had been neutral during the Clone Wars, opting to stay out of the fight for as long as possible. They didn’t want to get their home world involved, so they did none of the work liberating the galaxy from conflict. They simply sat back and enjoyed the view as the Empire took over, bringing justice to the galaxy. And now, with this uprising, they had the audacity to directly disobey the imperial system, rejecting it completely. Kallus could not understand where they could possibly come from on this. The Empire was handing them peace, handing them a security system and they simply refused, adamantly, with force. 

Kallus was assigned the simple task of enforcing peace on Lasan. He started small, from the orbiting star destroyers. He needed the people to understand where the Empire had come from, what their history was. He sorted through Imperial propaganda, looking for the right ones. A few well placed posters could stop a revolution. Kallus had seen it himself. 

However, the Lasat people had different plans. Their culture was stubborn. 

Unyielding, Kallus provided. He stuffed down images of the creatures before him on the holo beating his platoon to death. The scars on his arms tingled as he stretched out his hands. Their savage culture held them back from seeing the ways of the Empire as peaceful. 

He’d heard wind that the higher up ranks of the Navy had intended to make Lasan an example, to show other traditionally neutral systems what would happen if their people resisted. Kallus agreed with them, outwardly. Inwardly it was his message to the Lasat that haunted his sleeping hours. 

See what you’ve done to me. See what you’ve shaped us into here. The tyranny your insurgency has inspired will only lead to the death of your own people. 

His hand to hand combat skills became noted by his superiors with every class, and when the time came, Kallus was elected to run the ISB operations on Lasan. It was his first deployment since Onderon, and he was keen on making a good impression.   
He sat in the hull of the Imperial shuttle, glancing through his datapad, trying to find some smidge of information he hadn’t yet memorized. 

They were mostly trying to stop the insurgency. They were losing men on the front lines daily, and they needed a different angle. This was Kallus’s job, to find something that would bring down the rebels once and for all. He’d demonstrated mastery of it from afar, and now, up close, in the field, he could prove himself. 

The star destroyer hung above Lasan’s capital hung in the distance over an ocean they were currently crossing. The captain had brought it down from orbit to hover over the city, hoping to spark some fear into the heart of the locals. 

It apparently wasn’t working. Lasan grew more and more restless with every passing day. 

Kallus suspected it was because of the local population. In his studies of Lasats, he’d found them to be quite stubborn, stuck in their ways, and unwilling to change their culture for the greater good. They were a culture bound by honor, which Kallus found hard to believe. 

What honor they claimed to have disappeared with the semblance they had to the nightmarish creature he had encountered on Onderon. This planet was filled with his nightmares. But this time Kallus was unbreakable. He had studied his failure. He would make sure that this time, failure was not an option. 

The shuttle settled on top of a base on the outskirts of the capital. The Empire had constructed a slew of outposts surrounding the city. It was an attempt to slow supply lines, and keep the locals trapped inside. It was from this distance that Kallus got his first glance at the population. Great purple beasts, lumbering around on the surface, blaster bolts of yellow flying against their red ones. A few were out ahead of the crowd, wielding their blasters like staffs, preferring hand-to-hand combat over the trench laden shooters. 

Kallus watched from the front of the ship as the soldiers fell, piling up near the front of the lines. He hadn’t expected this uprising to be as equipped as it appeared to be. It didn’t matter in the end though, to him. The Empire would pull off a win, no matter what they had to do. 

He turned from the docked ship to face the commanders awaiting his attention at the edge of the building, who led him downstairs and into the war room. 

Kallus gazed over the plans, looking for flaws, trying to see the situation as his enemy would. 

There were choke points here and here. This was where they would’ve drawn us in, this is where they would shoot us down from. Here is where their commander sits, this is what you need to look out for. 

Kallus sifted through all the weapons the army had at their disposal. 

We need to make an example. Keep the rest of the planet from fighting us off. 

He paused on a weapon type he did not personally recognize. T-7 Ion Disruptor Rifle? It had to be new technology for it to have slipped his notice. 

The commanders quickly explained that it was newly designed, a product of pushing disruptor technology to its brink and back. Traditional disruptors could pass through durasteel like it was transparisteel, but these weapons did more. They could disintegrate anything that the bolt managed to touch. Kallus nodded. They’d be perfect for a demonstration. Surely the insurgents wouldn’t want to face such a devastating force that these could provide. 

He carefully chose locations for the disruptors to be placed within platoons. One for the troop marching towards the capital, a few where they’d be seen by the locals to spread rumors. Then, once the rumors had started, people would recognize the weapon. He’d just send out more and more of those weapons, showing the Empire’s great power, until the demonstration of force was so much that the planet would surrender. 

Kallus nodded with the commanders, agreeing with the plan set in place. The action would start building up now, culminating next week. The Empire would be out of Lasan’s hair- or rather, fur, in record time. 

Kallus was told to pick a platoon of stormtroopers to work alongside him as he fought in the city, but turned down the offer. He simply placed his assignment in the next troop out headed for the front lines. 

It was better for him not to know who he was working with this time. 

Kallus made his way through the base, greeted by the troops with care. Many of them had never seen an ISB agent before, and his low number caught the attention of many of the upper ranked officers who had. His name commanded respect, and these people were willing to give it to him. These troopers didn’t realize just how much he needed to upkeep it. 

The troop Kallus had dropped himself into left for the front at around 2100, when the cold night breeze was just starting to blow across the plains of Lasan. Without disturbance, they were to function mainly as a patrol, and head back at the top of the hour. They marched out of the bay without so much as a word from Kallus. They knew their duties, they just had a visitor that night. 

Kallus watched them as they maneuvered the city. As they dodged fire from insurgents and returned fire up to the rooftops. He watched as the Lasats sparked their staffs into an arc of electricity to attack from the ground. Kallus watched what it did to the platoon he was with, and kept firing. They suffered the loss of half of their men, but the insurgents had been chased into the night. 

Agent Kallus went with a different platoon of troopers every night, each night seeing more and more of the disruptors fired on the insurgents. The rebels did not stop. They found more force each night, and with each round outside the station, the stormtroopers found themselves growing weary. New troops had to be flown in on the daily now, briefed, and sent out without a second guess. 

It was the next week that the commanders received direct orders from the Emperor. 

Lasan needs to be made an example of. I need this insurgency brought down by the end of the week. 

Nods passed around the command center. 

Then we will fully outfit our battalions with the disruptors. The attack will be tomorrow afternoon. 

Kallus nodded yes, and verbally agreed. It was the only way to bring order to this planet. Use the disruptors. 

Night time came and went. Kallus made a transmission of the plan to attack with full force to his other officers. It was intentionally vague. And intentionally unencrypted. 

The morning sun came up, red across the horizon of the plains. 

Kallus looked across the waving grass, feeling the last cool breeze of the day across his face. He’d recently cut his beard, shaving off the middle bit so that the shape of it mirrored his helmet. Whether it was on or not, he’d be recognizable as ISB. Feared, even without its signature look. It was a part of him now. 

He took the helmet from his grip by his waist and shrugged it on. Its weight was familiar, comforting. It gave him protection from what was to come. It stopped his mind from racing at the sight of the great purple beasts. Closing his eyes, he took a breath in, and let it out through his nose. He was almost done here. One more battle. One more decisive victory, and he would forever be free of the Lasats. 

The braying of banthas took his thoughts back to the present. Kallus turned from the plains back to the Empire that stood before him, in full force. A full army had been called here today, four platoons of 36, four squads in each of those. He was heading up a left flanking squad through the sea of rebels, while others took alternate ways to the capitol building. The goal was to surround the government and force them to surrender. Give them no other choice. 

Horns rang out through the compound as the synchronized comms beeped in unison.   
Here we go. 

Visions flickered beneath Kallus’s mind. The eyes of the Lasat on Onderon. The troops that had fallen since he’d gotten here. The rebels that he’d traced here from Onderon, from Coruscant, and of course, his father. Dead now. Mother too. This was for Mother. This was so that no one else’s family in the galaxy would have to watch their own family fall to the unrest that was starting here. Kallus would make sure of it. 

The march began, falling forward with his assigned team. He looked across the line. All of them were outfitted with the disruptors. He sighed.

The compound echoed with the marching of feet as the platoons headed out into the city. He could already hear the sounds of fighting up in front of him as his squad made its way to the left flank.

The insurgents were out in full force, firing from every platform they could find, behind trash cans, from rooftops. These things dematerialized right in front of him as Kallus and the stormtroopers kept marching. It was brutal. No mercy this time. And the Lasats were not stopping either. 

A shadow appeared over Kallus and the men next to him. Kallus instinctively rolled away, but the people next to him weren’t as lucky. A purple form rolled over them, throwing his staff, alright with energy, against them.

Kallus stood up, anger filling his bones, lighting the fire that he had kept in his core for so long. 

“ _You!_ Lasat! Face me!” He rushed at the monster, flinging his blaster out in front of him to counter an attack from the staff. The force was greater than he expected, but he was able to stand his ground, push the staff up and away. He rolled back into an alleyway, firing a few bolts at the purple form. 

The Lasat dodged them easily, springing into the air between the two walls with surprising force. He landed almost on top of Kallus, bringing his face close, growling. His teeth were pointed, but he didn’t seem to possess that wild grin that Kallus had grown so used to falling asleep to. There was restraint, respect almost. He couldn’t think about it now. 

Kallus kicked up his legs, sending the lasat flying over him. He then spun around, swinging the butt of his rifle out, managing to connect with the head of the creature.   
The lasat cried out, flying to the side. Kallus stood up just to be kicked down again, but this time he was prepared for it. He used the momentum of the kick to fly around to the side, firing from his blaster. He missed the first few, but connected with the lasat’s side, and then his chest. The force that held Kallus there subsided. 

He turned to leave the alleyway, leaving the Lasat behind. 

“ _Or’viss…. or’viss_.” 

The sound from behind him made Kallus pause. He looked over his shoulder as the creature was trying to sit up, holding his weapon out in front of him. 

“ _Boosahn keeraw…_ ” He shoved the weapon towards Kallus again as he looked on in wonder. Kallus put his hands on the blaster. 

The lasat then turned to look directly in his eyes. 

“ _Ashbo..._ ” 

Kallus looked back at him. Steady. Balanced. Who knew that Gimm’s fascination with warrior dialects would be this alien’s last words. 

“Ashbo.” Alex whispered the word back to the dying lasat as his body went limp. He holstered the gifted weapon at his side, and walked back into the din of the battle. 

___

The cleansing of Lasan ended abruptly as the Empire marched to the capital, paving destruction in their wake, and executed the Royal Family for all who were left to see. Kallus wasn’t. He’d drudged behind, cleaning up his troops, making sure that the Lasat rebels that hid in the corners of their town were scared enough that they wouldn’t fire at them anymore. 

The population of Lasan had been nearly wiped out that morning. Imperial officers swarmed the city, checking for more “information”. Kallus stayed behind from them too, wiring data from the palace up to the imperial star destroyer that sat hanging above the city. He didn’t want to go outside. The bo-rifle that the guardsman had gifted him hung heavily by his side. It was a relic of a bygone society now. 

Kallus’s job here was done. He headed back up to the star destroyer on one of the first transports. 

___

“You’ve done exceptionally well here, Agent Kallus.”

He was back in Admiral Yularen’s study aboard the Enforcer.

“Other planet’s riots have decreased tenfold. The rebellion on Lasan has been put out before the spark could even reach the powder keg that is this galaxy.”

Kallus stared at Yularen blankly. 

“Of course, Admiral.”

“Because of this, the ISB is promoting you to one of our highest, currently available positions, ISB-021, if you would like it, Agent Kallus.”

Kallus smiled without reaching his eyes. More of an edging smirk if anything.

“I would be honored, Admiral.”

Yualren nodded. 

“In that case, it is yours. You’ll find an array of new assignments, but I’m afraid it won’t be as interesting as your past few. You did so well there that we can’t have you take all the credit these days!” Yularen chuckled. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, Kallus.”

Agent Kallus, ISB-021, nodded, and stood to leave from the room. He walked over to the door, and ran his cylinder through. He left the room, head spinning. 

___

Agent Kallus tracked criminals across the lengths of space. He investigated pirates, scoundrels, defectors, and even Imperials themselves. His skills grew stronger just as security grew, and his combat skills did nothing but improve. After a time, Kallus grew proficient with the bo-rifle, and started to use it as his primary weapon. It became his defining characteristic. 

The things that status will let you get away with. 

Kallus did modify the blaster slightly, adding a sharper point to it, removing the old cloth that looked like it was holding the thing together. He took pride in his changes. He was shaping an ancient relic to be better, stronger. It was a representation of what he thought the Empire was best at.


	18. The Fool

Kallus’s duties grew as the Imperial system gained more traction, and the initial resistance petered out. He was left with few larger scale projects, as Yularen had predicted, but a multitude of smaller, almost janitorial positions. 

He had just gotten back from tracking a particular smuggler to the edge of the galaxy and back. Never mind that he was an imperial deserter. Nevermind that he sullied the very name of Imperial. This “Solo” character would pay in time for his recklessness, but unfortunately not at Kallus’s grasp. 

He sat down at his station aboard the Lawbringer’s bridge. He’d since grown to appreciate how easily manipulable Captain Zataire had proved, and had nestled in without so much as a quip from him. 

Kallus had recently begun busying himself by tracking the funds that had been withdrawn by high up officers. He’d found it fun to see the corprels and commanders squirm to see that they were under investigation by the ISB. It made their whole system better. It made sure that no one was above the law. 

In fact, he’d turned down several Navy-related promotions over the past few years, for fear that they’d take him away from the front lines, and into the tumultuous realm of politics and favoritism. At the very least he could fight his way out of whatever situation he’d got himself into in the ISB. 

He watched funds travel across Imperial officers. They were mainly even, but as he brought in new data, he saw influxes around the Lothal Sector. Interesting, for an outer rim grouping. He funnelled across different planets, different cities. Lothal’s Imperial Academy glowed red against the light pink of the others. 

Kallus sniffed a laugh. The head officer there wasn’t even trying to hide whatever they were doing. 

He looked up the officer in the directory. The blood in his arms ran cold, with a jolt to his chest. 

Lieutenant Jovan. 

Agent Kallus packed up the data neatly, and filed an official report. His history with Jovan wouldn’t prevent justice from coming for him. The Lawbringer was headed to the Lothal Sector anyways to pick up some new academy graduates. He could pop down, make an arrest, head back up. Just another capture for the books. 

He alerted the captain that he’d be going down with the drop team, to bring a criminal to justice. 

The Imperial shuttle flew over the small suburb of Dinar, passing over the city in just a few minutes. It didn’t impress Kallus. He’d travelled far and wide across the galaxy now; the only thing that could impress him was, well, an imperial that _didn't_ have any slight marks on their resume. Some worse than others. Kallus was proud that in the past ten years, he’d managed to gather none. 

Before that though...

The ship dropped from flight to the ground outside the imperial complex. The gray building was almost dreary against the wheat and sky that made up most of Lothal. Fortunately though, it held promise for Kallus. The promise of the hunt, the promise of being able to bring justice and stability. 

Kallus hopped off the ramp of the ship, marching separate from the troops sent to gather the new recruits. If he was to find Jovan, he wouldn’t find him out front. Jovan knew he was coming already. 

A figure flashed in the alleyway next to him. Kallus sighed. 

“Lieutenant! You’re not being as sneaky as you care to believe around here.”

The figure stopped, turning around. 

Jovan had grown old, much like Kallus had. His hair was graying at the tips, coming down in longer locks than how he’d had it at the Academy. He’d lost an eye somewhere too, wearing a patch over his right. It was worn down enough that Kallus had to assume it hadn’t been recent. 

“Alexsandr.”

“That’s Agent to you, Lieutenant Jovan, Agent Kallus, ISB. I’m here to take you in on suspicion of embezzlement.” His words were cold. He needed to remind Jovan that they were not friends anymore. Not even acquaintances. And Agent Kallus outranked him. 

Jovan’s eyebrows raised at the sentence he was given. He quickly turned away, sprinting down the alley. 

Kallus sighed. He was not as young as he used to be, when this chase would seem easy. Like a jaunt in the park. He took off after Jovan after some light mental amping up and the shake of his head. 

He followed him through the market, past bays of fruit and goods, across launchpads. Eventually, Jovan boarded a stolen TIE Fighter, taking off across the plains. Kallus followed him, hot on his trail, feeling the thrill of the hunt rush through him. It was only a matter of time until he brought him down over the plains, spiraling into a plume of dust. Kallus landed carefully, making his way over to Jovan’s stolen ship. He sparked his bo-rifle, and found him struggling among the wreckage. 

“Come with me Lieutenant. You of all people know they’ll give you a fair trial.”

Jovan sneered. 

“For what? Abusing my position? You, of course would know that this Empire was designed to give people power who had it stolen away from them.” Jovan stood back from the wreckage, limping. “I just saw an opportunity and took it for myself this time.”  
Kallus walked over, holding the staff out in front of him comming his location to his troops. Bringing the bo-rifle down, he fastened handcuffs over Jovan’s wrists. 

“If you’d taken the opportunities given to you, Lieutenant, you wouldn’t be out here in the middle of nowhere trying to teach our young recruits how to count and spell.”

Jovan aggressively turned away from Kallus. 

“You do not get to speak to me that way, Alexsandr.” He walked further away as Kallus followed him closely, holding the staff close enough to his ear that it singed the hair nearest to it. 

“If I’d taken my opportunities correctly then you would be dead.”

Kallus continued to march behind him, holding his wrists with the other hand, walking towards the town. 

“It’s been ten years nearly to the day that _you_ lost everything for me, Alexsandr! Tell me you do not recall your failure, your own fault that caused the deaths of _my_ close friends!”

No response from Kallus. His jaw was set. His ears were closed to this traitor. The words sparked no emotion within him. 

“You know, Alex, I don’t care what you have to say. I’m sick of this Empire, sick of what you think our world is about these days. You’re running around like peacekeepers when really all you do is ruin other peoples’ lives. They weren’t yours to take!” Kallus still made no response, just held his bo-rifle out in front of him. 

Jovan sneered. “You’re no better than the Jedi, Alexsandr.”

He hadn’t spent years trying to forget everything about that day just to have Jovan drive it home again. He forcefully pushed him forward with the bo-rifle, spotting the imperial transport approaching them in the distance. 

Jovan was silent as they bolted him into the ship. Kallus looked up at him one last time before he slipped into the doorway, almost hinting at remorse. There was a slight pause. Then nothing. Jovan sat back in the carrier. Kallus sat down in the bay of his vehicle as they drove back to the base. 

___

Jovan was right of course. That was what bothered him. 

It had been exactly ten years since his Onderon expedition. It had been ten years since he’d led that mission, since Kallus had seen that the insurgents had no limits to what they’d do to stop the Empire. That they had no limits to where they’d stop. They’d fight a war with another war. They’d destroy everyone in their path.

It was his slight bit of questioning though, that sparked a long forgotten line of fire deep within Kallus’s sense of being. 

It brought back dark memories of his father that he didn’t want to think about. 

No better than the Jedi. Same motive, more militant. They’d just replaced an old, broken system. There was peace now, people just had to buy into it. They were better than that. The Empire had structure, it was a system. It was better than that. 

He chose not to think about it. Kallus didn’t have time to examine what this could mean for him. He pushed the treasonous thought down and kept working. He fought smugglers, captured more high ranking officers, and even traced a rogue shipment of kyber crystal that had gone missing. 

It was three years before Kallus uncovered his next project involving long stretching strings of insurgents. The Empire had grown substantially, and so had cemented its ways in the galaxy. It felt like Kallus had known no other way in the world. 

When he first encountered the disturbance in the Lothal system, he had attributed it to pirates and moved on. 

But the attacks kept coming. And they were deliberately aimed at Imperial targets. In his head, Kallus began to refer to this group as a rebel cell, although they remained keen-eyed pirates in his reports. 

Soon enough, he was dispatched through the ISB to investigate the disturbance. He brought himself again aboard the Lawbringer, enjoying the company of Captain Zataire, noting that his rather insurgent son was on the run and couldn’t _possibly_ be found. Except when he could. Except when Kallus could connect the dots between the gifted wine from the captain and Alderaan. Would be a shame if the Empire were to know where that rebellious son of yours was, Zataire. 

Needless to say, Zataire complied with Kallus’s forced commandeering of the Lawbringer. 

He brought the Lawbringer in above the city, peering down, looking across the drab buildings of the prairie settlement. He needed the rebels to fear him. To fear the power of the Empire. The Lawbringer could do that. 

That night, as the star destroyer hovered, Kallus descended to the surface aboard his shuttle. 

The streets were afraid of him. He stared at specific beings, seeing if they’d waiver, seeing if they’d turn from his gaze or hold it. Nighttime could hide the minor crimes of the alleyways, but it could do little to disguise the behavior of the city’s inhabitants. 

Kallus was to meet with Commandant Aresko, the head of the Imperial Millitay’s operations on Lothal. There had been an attack earlier that day, and Kallus had a few questions for the man. 

Why didn’t you stop them? What were you doing instead? Do you know where they came from? I do. How vast is your intelligence here on this ground base that you have become the primary target for this cell?

He smiled. He tended to enjoy interrogating Imperials more than anyone else. The little squirm, pulling at their collars. They knew his power. Wonderful show, really. At least they were more convincing with their lies, as opposed to a spice trader, standing in front of their spice containers, claiming to not be transporting spice. 

Kallus tilted his head down to smile. AT-DP walkers paraded around him as he made his way up to the dome to meet with Aresko. 

A few pleasantries. The typical _walk with me Commandant_ to get him on edge. Kallus could feel his emotions broiling. He held himself high and stiff as they wandered out onto a platform bordering the command room. Kallus turned out towards the night without a word, waiting for Aresko’s blundering response. 

“They knew our protocol, they were waiting in position!”

Weaker than expected. Of course they were. 

“I have no doubt.” Kallus rolled his eyes, sighing. “You’re not the first on Lothal to be hit by this… _crew_.”

Aresko let out a breath. 

“Well that’s a relief- I- I mean.”

Kallus turned around to see the man struggle as he adjusted his hat. 

“I mean, I assume that’s why you’re here, Agent Kallus.”

Kallus sighed. This was going to be much more difficult than he’d anticipated. The commandant was about as smart as a sack of bricks and twice as stubborn. He could try to explain how a spark of rebellion burned across strings across the galaxy. Or he could just yell at him for lack of doing his duties. Kallus opted for the former, hoping that he could fly above the man’s head with status to try to convince him to follow his orders.   
He shook his helmet off, leveling himself to Aresko.

“The _Imperial Security Bureau_ pays attention to patterns.” He drew out the words, stepping closer to Aresko so he could tower over him with his height. “When the Empire’s operations are targeted on an ongoing basis, it could signify more than the loss of a few creates.” He turned away from Aresko so that the man would hear his words with a bit of extra flair. “It could signify the spark of rebellion.”

He turned around again to face Aresko. Kallus could see the fear welling in his eyes, his position, his years of loyalty, all of it was coming across to him now as completely unstable in the hands of these pirates. Kallus had made his point. His original risk had paid off.

“Next time they make a move, we’ll be waiting for them to snuff out that spark before it catches fire.”

He let his sentence of grandeur set in with Aresko. 

“Alright then. Precisely what I had in mind, Agent.” 

Kallus stifled a laugh. Oh, did he now?

“Then, Commandant, let’s go look at some of the data presented to us about this crew.”

Kallus pointedly walked past Aresko, bringing out his datapad. He pulled his data onto the holo in the center of the room. Some captured photos of the crew. A twi'lek, two humans. One wore Mandelorian armor. A larger form, the muscle. Kallus couldn’t discern species but it wasn’t human. He then pulled up points of attack across the surface. 

“Commandant Aresko, do tell me what you see across these points of interest.” He turned to look at the man, folding his arms across his chest. 

“They’re the- the uh. They’re locations on Lothal, Agent Kallus.”

Oh dear. This was a setback. 

“Yes, Commandant, this is a holo of Lothal, thank you for telling me. Now, what is the pattern? Or are you too blind as to see it?”

Aresko shook his head nervously. Kallus sighed. 

“They’re the locations of the sightings of this crew. They center around the northeast quadrant of the world here, criss-crossing the Capital City more than anything else.”

Kallus looked over at Aresko again, as if expecting him to add something else. 

Aresko’s expression had nothing to add. 

“So, therefore, we can assume that their informant is in this sector, right, Commandant?”

Aresko looked as if he was about to burst with the cool anxiety that hung in the room.

“Of course, of course, Agent. That would make the most sense.”

“Now, let’s see, who operates in this sector that would be looking for information to give to these insurgents? Who would be looking to make a few credits off of any information they could sell, and not care whether their customer came back alive?”

“You-you can’t mean we’re looking for a pirate? A scoundrel? In my city?” He seemed mad. As if they weren’t already investigating a spark of rebellion here. 

“Commandant Aresko, please, enlighten me, can you supply a list of these sorts of people we might find in this region? A bounty puck? Anything?”

Aresko sniffed, tilting his head upwards. 

“No, Agent. We do not have those types of people in our good cities.” 

He’d pushed Aresko too far. Kallus sighed as the commandant left the room, and he was left to himself. Kallus scanned the photos of the crew again. 

He spotted something in one. A horn, painted onto a crate. In fact, the symbol of a broken horn. He plugged that data into the strings he’d already strung. A quick scan of the symbol ran through his database, coming back with promising results. 

No pirates on your planet, Aresko? It looks like you’ve got a full crime syndicate running out of Lothal and you've just turned your ears from it. 

At least he could trust that this source of information wouldn’t be going away anytime soon. He rolled his eyes and pressed further. 

What would they be searching for?

Kallus glanced back at the pictures again. The muscle, who was he? He at least seemed to have fur from the looks of the blurred picture. A wookie, that would make sense. Always the rebellious type. 

Kallus first arranged for his trap to be set. He dispatched a small freighter to the coordinates, and rerouted the original prisoner ship. Then, he sent the trap to the Broken Horn. 

Let’s see what these rebels throw back at us when their information isn’t correct. Let’s see if they can see through our Imperial lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> roll credits  
> montage chapter because it's high time we got to that good rebels content


	19. Bahryn

Agent Kallus looked over the report again. Ryloth was already experiencing active riots, and he was sure that this strike was just another act of their insubordinate people. 

And yet. The stark disappearance of the hanger ship hung over him. He’d tracked the Lothal cell for over a year now, and they were still being reckless, still thwarting the Empire. Still thwarting _him_. 

He’d followed them across systems, across multiple different attack locations. He’d commandeered starships beyond his grasp, and they slipped through his fingers every time. 

Ryloth was a devastating loss to the Empire. But his consistent failure to capture the rebel cell was beginning to weigh as more of a loss on him. Commandant Aresko and the Academy Taskmaster had been fatally removed from duty just a few months prior for their failures on Lothal. Right in front of him. 

Kallus had to be next in that line of fire, and that was a frightening prospect to him. He’d made himself too important. He was ISB-021 for stars’ sakes. 

The anxiety was still there though. He’d managed to shake it off enough, but sometimes, sometimes Kallus just thought too much. 

_Tell me you do not recall your failure?_

I do Jovan. All too well. 

But on the other hand, the Empire was growing every day. Everyday more people from planets that had chosen to fight were taking their side, submitting to peace. It was only a matter of time before Ryloth, before these Rebels saw the light of what they were doing. The strong would survive. The weak cogs in the system, Aresko, the Taskmaster, and yes, the Rebels, the weak, they would perish. 

Agent Kallus went back to tracing the Lothal cell’s activity. They’d been seen at a huge starcluster at the edges of wild space a few weeks back, and Kallus had hoped that’d be the end of them. But then last week they’d been at the Mining Guild outpost, and then with the reports on Ryloth, he could assume the worst. They were still out there. 

He needed to set more traps, needed to up his game. So far they’d been a step behind too many times for his liking. 

What would they be bent on looking for that they would so easily fall into? Kallus had tried multiple times to feed them false information, to get them to go to a point to be captured. 

This time… this time there needed to be an air of truth in it. A sensor on his dash flicked from green to red, the signal of an informant waiting on the line. Kallus tapped the button. 

A report alleged that the rebels had stopped for fuel along the Triellus Trade Route.

Interesting. One of the three edges of the Spice Triangle. Thought to not have too many Imperial eyes along it, they’d probably assumed it was safe. Oh, it was funny how wrong they were. 

But what were they doing there? Kallus paged through planets along the route, looking for a reason why they would be headed out that way. What rumors they could be following. 

The Bheriz, Galov, and Arkanis sectors, maybe they were going to Tatooine?

That boy Ezra would finally meet the real Jabba if so. Kallus snarked a laugh. 

A planet on the list caught his eyes.

Geonosis. 

It had to be. 

Rumors had begun to swirl about the planet. Kallus hadn’t looked into them much but he had a vague idea of what had happened there. What had been there. It wasn’t his position to ask questions of that sort. 

He confirmed with the informant on the line that they could further try to plant information down the ears of the cell, and sent his crew to the derelict station above the desert planet. Only a few though. Not enough for the operation to get noticed if it was a complete guess out in wild space. 

As the light cruiser flew through hyperspace, Kallus sat scrolling through data on his pad. The stormtroopers didn’t talk, and he made no move to make them more comfortable. Best get used to this. You won’t last long if you start caring about people here. 

Kallus’s informant had confirmed the Ghost’s route. Now they just had to stop and investigate. It was what rebels did, after all. They investigated, stuck their nose in too far to things they shouldn’t. 

The light cruiser dropped out of hyperspace and docked at the old construction center. Agent Kallus waved the pilot off as the troops marched onto the station, taking their positions within the walls. 

They sat and waited. Crews scanned the area for ships. Kallus stood at the ready, one hand on his bo-rifle, the other holding his datapad, reading the report the citizen had dutifully sent in. For the right payment, the informant added. Kallus added that to the list of things he’d have to do when he got back. Right now, the stake-out took priority.

“Sir! Agent Kallus, we’re tracking a small ship that just came out of hyperspace.”

It was them. Kallus smiled. 

“Hold your positions then. Have the astromech lock us down.” 

He turned around to face the stormtrooper.

“Do _not_ give away our trap here, Officer.”

The trooper nodded. 

“Of course, sir.”

They ran off. 

Kallus stood attentive as the doors closed around him. He handed his datapad to another trooper, who ran off to plug it into the main computer. 

Breath in. Breathe out. Kallus closed his eyes, trying to quell the feeling in his stomach. The rage he’d built towards the rebel team over the past year. 

He gripped his bo-rifle with an angered intensity. The Empire was his people, who he trusted. It was his life. These Rebels sought to do nothing more than tear everything he’d worked towards from him. 

And nothing was a better representation of that than the Lasat they had with them. That he faced in battle, and won on every occasion that he hadn’t lost to him. 

That hatred ran more personal. He knew that given the chance, this Garazeb Orrelios would finish what the lasat on Onderon chose not to. 

“Ship has docked in the landing bay, right in front of us sir.”

“Steady.”

 _Ashbo_. His brain provided. 

_Quiet_. Kallus retorted back. 

“-might have records of what the Empire was making.” He strained his ears against his helmet. That was definitely Sabine Wren, the young Mandelorian. 

“My gut tells me those data banks will be empty.” Kanan Jarrus, the elder Jedi.  
He’d managed to get the whole crowd gathered here. 

The astromech from the hallway gave the signal, lighting up his commlink.  
“My gut tells me this is a trap.”

Kallus smiled through the barrier dividing them. The lasat was smarter than half the Imperials he’d managed to work with. 

The doors slid open as the astromech sealed them in with the stormtroopers. 

“How perceptive.” Kallus swung out his bo-rifle, and sprung into action. 

The Spectres were clearly outnumbered here, at least five to one. Kallus had trapped them in a small space here, with an army to back him up. And yet the Lasat still fought him hand to hand, ignoring the other troopers. It was, of course, personal. Agent Kallus thought back to their first matchup on Lothal where he’d unbalanced him with taking credit for the use of the disruptors. Which wasn’t _completely_ true but managed to drive a hot anger into his opponent, which threw him off. Made him unsteady when he fought. 

“Lasats,” Kallus panted the word as the purple alien towered over him, “Never know when to give up.” He pushed back, tangling arms against him. 

Shouts echoed around the battle. The tall human male - Kanan- called out to the Lasat. They were leaving, but it appeared that he was too caught up in his anger around Kallus and the fight to make it back.

Good. Spare the rest this time, I’ve managed to capture the Lasat. We can bait them back, we can turn this one in, the options we have now are endless. 

Kallus smiled for a second, before his opponent undercut his blow, shoving him back against the wall. 

Kallus’s head spun in circles, graying out and back in again. The Lasat had disappeared.

Kallus stood up, listening through the ringing in his ears.

“-got my own ride out of here, escape pod.”

Ah. So he had found another way to leave. 

Agent Kallus knew the way there. Garazeb did not. He could beat him there without question, and took off running. 

He dove in just as the Lasat had flicked the switches for release, landing across the transponder with force. He pushed back to his feet, punching out as the pod undocked.

Quite a small space for the two large, angry warriors, but as the pod careened towards the ice moon below them, they looked to each other in horror. 

A flash of light blue ice, the red of pain, and the black of the crash. 

___

“It’s Zeb, by the way. My name, it’s Zeb.”  
“Short for Garazeb Orrelios.” Kallus paused. “I know.”  
He held more meaning in his last sentence than he’d meant to.

___

“That’s… A ship.”

“Yeah, but whose?”

He held his hand out.

“Come’on.”

“Ah. Your friends did find you.”

“Like I said they would.” He paused. “You know, we would treat you fairly.”

“I’ll take my chances… with the Empire. Zeb.”

He put his hand in his fist and gave a short bow. 

Kallus returned the gesture. Zeb walked away into the snow, towards the Ghost. 

He stood, staring, as the ship took off, leaving him with the transponder and the meteorite in the swirling morning snow. 

Kallus made his way back to the enclave he’d spent the night in, and sat back down, holding the warm rock against his core. 

He didn’t want to think about this encounter. He didn’t want to think about the cold either though, so he chose the former. 

Some kriffing situation he’d gotten himself into here. He wished the Lasat had just finished him off when they landed. 

But then again, he didn’t. Zeb had helped him out of the cave, helped to fend off those _animals_ , and had found the enclave. 

Kallus hadn’t finished him off either. He could get court-martialed just for thinking that though, lest acting upon it. 

_How do you act in failure?_ It was like Gimm was staring up at him. The boy he’d fought in primary school to get into the academy. Force, he couldn’t even remember his name now. He couldn’t do it again for some reason. 

Maybe it was because the Lasat wasn’t actively conspiring against him at the time. Kallus shook the thought. He was a _rebel_. He was a _Lasat_. He had everything stacked against him in Kallus’s mind. 

So why didn’t I shoot him? 

Kallus closed his eyes, searching. 

The wind picked up around him, and he shivered closer to the meteorite. Even for the daylight rotation now it was freezing. And he’d just lost his only other source of heat.  
Zeb had managed to care for him. Despite being injured, despite being Imperial, despite everything stacked against him. It didn’t make any sense. 

Kallus tried to reason it out. He didn’t sound like he had been trying to manipulate him, but he might be playing the long game, trying to get into Kallus’s head. If that was the case, he’d certainly succeeded. 

He hugged the meteor closer to his chest and pressed himself into the walls of the cave.

What had happened to the Geonosians? 

They’d obviously been building something here, something huge. Something large enough that they’d have to build it above the planet, in space. They didn’t even build the big Corellian ships up there. Kallus had heard rumors of tech that needed to be built without the effects of gravity, so maybe it hung in that category?

There had been no rebellion. Kallus would know of that. He’d traced strings of rebels across the galaxy but never to this bug ridden planet. And now they were all dead. 

They had to be linked, whatever they were building and the mass genocide of the Geonosians. 

If he could just do a bit more digging on this construction project when he got back-

No. 

Stop asking questions, Kallus. You’re above this. 

Well, if I die here on Bahryn, it’s not like any of these are going to be _answered_ questions. 

He was starting to lose feeling in his toes. He stood up, shaking, trying to pace the length of the overhang. 

Kallus did not think about the Empire not showing up for him. He did not think about how they should’ve noticed his absence by now, at least at the construction hangar. He did not think about how he was away from his troops when he dove recklessly into the escape pod, how no one would know he was here, how they’d think he was dead. How they wouldn’t be bothered to investigate some tiny, insignificant little distress beacon, sent on all signals from this tiny, frigid moon. 

He did not think of how the Empire had left him so many other times. Most notably over a month ago on Seelos.

Kallus collapsed at the far edge of the overhang. The pain in his left leg had been replaced with frigid jolts of pain every time he moved them. His fingers were losing feeling quickly. He tried to focus on the sounds of the howling wind outside, on anything other than the pain, but found himself slipping. Darkness crept into his vision.

No… Not yet…

He held the meteor to his fingers in an attempt to disperse the warmth more, but the cold was too great around him. The darkness honed in on him, and consumed his pain with it. The white world of Bahryn went black. 

___

Something was circling above him. A bird? Of some sort. Green and white, long tail, rounder head. An owl? Like on Endor? Strange for anything to live here. 

White snow flicked against the black in the back of his mind. 

Someone leaned over him. Head tails, maybe Twi’lek? Stripes… Maybe an Ozrelanso…

No, she had one in the back. Togruta. 

Kallus tried to sit up, tried to move, but quickly lost his breath, dizzy. Darkness surrounded him once again. 

___

Kallus awoke, groggy but warm. A dull whirr echoed through his head. His eyes were heavy as he forced them open. 

A warm orange light filled a great cavity within the ship. Kallus had been sprawled out across the floor, wet with snow from Bahryn. 

Thoughts of the moon came flooding back to him. The crash, the bonzami, the meteorite, Zeb saving him, Zeb climbing the walls, Zeb…

Kallus rolled over onto his stomach, pain surging again through his leg. He grunted in pain. 

Obviously that had alerted whoever was piloting the ship, because Kallus heard steps coming towards him. He propped himself up with an arm, rolling over onto his side. 

An older togruta appeared in the doorway, her lekku almost reaching the top of the doorway. Her clothes gave away that she was obviously not Imperial, as Kallus had originally hoped. Not that the Empire would ever even think to bring on a togruta anyways. 

She crossed the room lightly, with authority, and sat down cross-legged in front of Kallus. She smiled. 

“Honestly, I was beginning to think you were fully gone when I pulled you from that freezing rock.”

Kallus sat up more fully, trying to imitate her cross legged stance. 

“And I mean, you probably would have been if I didn’t manage to catch your distress signal! You were quite worse for wear, Agent.”

Kallus became acutely aware of the bacta patches strewn across his left leg and feet. 

“You know, hypothermia isn’t something-” 

Kallus focused into the conversation.

“-Where am I?” He looked around. “Who are you? Why would you rescue me?”

The togruta shrugged. 

“You’re on my ship. I’m talking you back to meet up with some law bringing Imperial business. Um…” She held up fingers to count. “I rescued you because I figured the Imps would want a high ranking ISB kid back and there’d be credits, and well, that’s about it.”

Kallus shifted. 

“Your name then?”

“You can call me,” she seemed to think for a second, “Ashla.”

Of course that wouldn’t be her real name, but Kallus could settle. 

She still sat there, with eyes that seemed to gaze further into him with each second. Kallus looked down. 

“Thank you, Ashla.”

The togruta looked back up at him. 

“I didn’t know Imperials knew how to use those words.”

We don’t usually. 

“Well, it’s not like most Imperials had their lives saved by random citizens traversing the edges of the galaxy.”

They paused a moment. Kallus sat in the silence he had created, pondering his response. 

“What were you even doing down there? Don’t tell me there’s been an uprising beneath the surface of that snowball.”

Kallus cracked a smile. 

“Truthfully, Ashla, I didn’t mean to end up there. We crash landed from a larger vessel.” He shifted his weight off of his leg. It was beginning to ache again.

“We? Don’t tell me there’s another Imperial down there, I really only saw you.”

Kallus shook his head. 

“Not another Imperial. Either way, the threat had passed now. Do not worry.”

Ashla gave him an inquisitive look as Kallus turned away.

Fine. He’d tell her. Who else was going to be able to hear this end of the story anyways? Certainly not his mission report. Plus there was something that buzzed around Ashla. It told Kallus to trust her. 

Kallus crossed his arms. 

“I was in the middle of a battle with an adversary, we crashed on the moon in a cave, and we managed to make it out together. But his ship got there first and I… I couldn’t leave with them. So I’m here. You picked me up. I go back to the Empire, and it’s the end of the story.”

The togruta raised an eyebrow. 

“Is it?”

“Is it _what_.”

“Is it the end of the story?”

Kallus sat, wondering if it was the fog that clouded his brain over from being passed out for so long that was preventing him from understanding the point of this interaction. 

“Agent, let me tell you a legend from an older society.”

Kallus did not have time for old tales from forgotten cultures. This was the reason the Empire had banned such things. Purely because of his annoyance with them, he was sure. He rolled his eyes. 

Ashla procured a piece of chalk from within her long robes. 

“The Lasat tell the tale of the Prophecy of the Three.” Kallus’s eyes grew wide with interest as Ashla began drawing. Of course it would be a Lasat legend. 

“It was originally intended to be a map to the lost world of Lira San, but many have interpreted it otherwise, as a transformation of self reckoning that happens within.” 

Ashla had drawn three circles on the ground, pointing at an inner circle. 

“The prophecy centered around three individuals: the Child, the Warrior and the Fool. The Fool would lead the Warrior to hunt the Child, and only if the Child saved both the Warrior and the Fool would the future of the Lasat species be assured.” With each introduction, she drew a depiction of a different creature. A hunched over, crude drawing for the fool. A strong, forward facing figure for the warrior. A lively, jumping depiction for the child.

“All three roles could be played by one person at different stages of their life. The Fool in someone's personality was unable to see potential futures, while someone's Child was filled with hope for the future, and it was up to the person's Warrior to make that future possible.” 

She looked back up at him, sitting now at the head of the drawing. 

“You are unable to see any version of the future but what you have driven yourself into. You’ve been given a choice.” 

“You mean to call me the Fool?”

“Zeb was able to see something in you that you do not see in yourself. You just need to find it, Alexsandr.”

Her eyes drove straight into Kallus’s soul as he looked up at her. 

His eyes narrowed. 

“How do you…”

Ashla waved her hand slowly, dismissing the question. 

Proximity sensors rang out from the cabin. 

“That’s your ship, Agent.”

Kallus coughed and stood up dizzily. 

“Of course it is.”

He turned to go down to the drop bay. 

Ashla called out to him from the cockpit.

“I need you to remember, Alex. You are not the chaos beneath the wings of the Empire. You are the fulcrum that can turn the balance back to center.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you fucked up a perfectly good imperial is what you did. look at him. he's got anxiety.


	20. Thrawn

_Kriff._

The population on Geonosis was eliminated to stop the spread of information. They were poisoned. By the Empire. 

Why else would there be Imperial shipments of Dioxis by the ton, delivered to the planet itself? It certainly was beyond creating gaseous grenades for them. Those were far past standard issues now. 

They’d stopped allowing shore leave on other planets. They’d kept other slaves off that project on purpose. The bugs had to stay on their own planet because that was where they belonged. Apparently where they belonged was dead, according to them. 

The incident was isolated. It had to be. 

Kallus closed his eyes. Visions of the cleansing of Lasan told him Geonosis was not isolated. 

The idea was there. Prevent uprisings and all, but not to this extent. The point of the Empire was to promote peace in the galaxy, and that started with a right to living. 

Kallus thought back to Bahryn again, as he had so much these past few days.

_Back on Lasan, it wasn’t supposed to be that bad._

But there was no way of avoiding it. Kallus knew now that the intention was there, and it wouldn’t have changed, no matter the level of resistance. 

He set down his datapad on the bed next to him, and glanced up at the meteorite that sat on his shelf. He reached out lightly, feeling the warmth radiating off of it. Even among the coldness of the Star Destroyer, it found a way to be a light and warmth in the galaxy. 

It was late at night. He hadn’t been able to sleep normally anymore. Kallus had made an original agreement with himself to only think about this when he wasn’t on duty. Which had resulted in a lot of late nights recently. 

The weight of that, and his newfound information weighed heavily on him. He had to believe that this wasn’t the widespread intention of the Empire. It was, afterall, still very much his duty to serve the cause. 

Could he with this sort of information though? 

Kallus laid down on his bunk, trying to wrap the darkness of sleep around him. He was headed down a dangerous avenue, wherever he was going. 

___

The Rebel cell from Lothal had been spotted breaking someone out of an Imperial prison. 

It was enough to hold a meeting about. Or so Governor Pryce would think, seeing as she called the three most important people in the sector to this session. Apparently even Grand Moff Tarkin was there. Kallus huffed at the thought. Although, some of the new muscle that they were supposed to be using to snuff out the rebellion was supposed to arrive today. Tarkin would breathe down their neck enough to get them to shiver. That would be enough of a fun sight to go to this meeting at least. Kallus was just glad that he was dealing with a new fleet that didn’t know him quite as well, so his constant anxiety about the Empire would just be, well, his new normal. 

He buckled his armor onto his chest, opting to leave his helmet behind. Everyone there would know his status, and he was in no place to show it off. And he didn’t think he was going to get hit in the head. No one there wanted him dead. 

Yet. 

Kallus shook his head, and marched off into the corridor.

They were onboard the head ship of the Seventh Fleet, the star of the Imperial Navy, fully equipped for battle, outfitted with all sorts of peace-keeping glory, like laser cannons fully capable of a planetary bombardment. 

He turned his code cylinder in the lift, and shot up to the bridge. 

He walked over to the holo where Tarkin and Konstantine were waiting. The Admiral looked a bit too relieved to see him. Kallus was sure that talking with the Grand Moff alone was quite a treat. 

Governor Pryce and her new guest had yet to show. 

The trio stared into the projected data on the screen, waiting. 

“I’m sure Governor Pryce is overestimating how organized the resistance is,” Konstantine sputtered out, obviously trying to make conversation. 

“While it’s true there are pockets of them, there has never been any evidence of a larger scale, galaxy wide operation.”

The lift door wooshed open. Out of the darkness, a calm, vaguely familiar voice spoke out. 

“And I would like to keep it that way, Admiral Konstantine.”

Kallus’s blood froze with visions of a younger Chiss than the one that stood in front of him.

“Grand Admiral Thrawn.” Tarkin introduced him to the crew. Kallus already knew but-

“ _Grand_ Admiral?” Konstantine asked the question that managed to bug him. Better to have himself look the wiser here.

“The Emperor recently promoted me after my victory at Batonn.”

Batonn… the name sounded familiar. Kallus tied strings across the names. The Battle of Batonn. It was absolutely brutal. His feelings betrayed him here.

“Civilian casualties outnumbered the insurgents at the time.”

“Acceptable margins, Agent Kallus,” Pryce floated in with her uppity answer. “For there are no longer Rebels in that sector.”

Kallus nodded, staring at Thrawn. The Chiss met his steely gaze through the holodeck he had prepared.

“This is a pirate our Rebels rescued from…” Kallus toned out the drone of Thrawn’s voice with his thoughts running rampant. 

Kallus hadn’t exactly been following the path of the alien he’d almost denied from the Academy so many years ago, but hearing the words Grand Admiral attached to the name seemed so foreign. Did Thrawn even remember him? 

_So you’re the alien we found at the edge of the galaxy, Thrawn. What were you? Cast out? Hoping to find a new life here in our Empire?_

His taunts rang in his quickly reddinging ears. Kallus began to wish he’d worn his helmet. Thrawn had certainly obtained success here in the Empire. 

Kallus looked up again at the briefing. It looked like the meeting was over, Konstantine and Tarkin had filed out of the room, and Pryce looked to be doing that as soon as she finished shutting the holo off. Thrawn seemed to be lost in thought. 

Kallus turned to leave. 

“Not yet, Agent Kallus.” Thrawn’s icy voice overtook him.

Kallus decided to play the fool. 

“Yes, Grand Admiral?”

Pryce left the room. It was the two of them alone. Kallus swallowed his fear. 

“Agent Kallus, do you recall our first meeting? Coruscant? The Imperial Academy?”

“I don’t believe so.”

Thrawn circled the holotable to face him.

“Hm. For some reason I am inclined to believe you do, Agent. Either way, I would just like you to know that you were instrumental in my path here.”

“You mean to thank me?” Kallus didn’t think that was within the alien’s frame of reference.

“No, Agent, I mean that you of all people set me up for destruction. You set up the ways that people see me, and you enforce them. And you do not manage to see what your Empire really stands for. Your comment about the casualties at Batonn did not go unnoticed.”

“Our objective is to bring peace to this galaxy.”

“Our objective is to bring power to the Imperial system. Are you too blind to see that? I thought someone with your skills would be more… willing.”

Kallus shifted. 

“I don’t believe I understand. My objective here is to ensure that our officers and our subjects are peaceful, and do not use the system solely for their gain of power. Perhaps you deserve a bit of digging, in your case?”

Kallus hoped the light poke would set the Chiss on edge. 

“Very well, if you must, Agent Kallus. But I do caution you that everything I have ever done has been with reason.” 

Thrawn’s eyes bored into Kallus as he glanced down.

“Duly noted. Thank you, Grand Admiral.”

Thrawn nodded back at him as Kallus made a beeline for the lift. 

Once the doors closed, he let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. 

Stars. He almost wished he’d never started caring for the people who lived in the galaxy.   
More civilian casualties than any other battle in the system. Sure, Thrawn knew how to be effective, but the cost of his maneuvers was severe. He’d only been successful because he fought wars such as these, how he beat the enemy when they were down.   
He was exactly what the Academy had tried to shape Alex into. Kallus made up his mind then. He was not like Thrawn, he couldn’t be. And because of Thrawn’s rank, because of everything the Empire had given him because of what he had done, Kallus knew that the Empire did not stand on solid pillars anymore. The Empire had no sense of mercy, no intention of peace. The system was wrong. 

The rebels just knew it better than he did. 

_The fool would lead the warrior to hunt the child._ Ashla’s words came back to him. He was blind to the ways of the Empire. He had been for so much of his life, so many years wasted supporting this system that would never allow justice. 

He drew open the door to his bunk, greeted by the soft yellow glow of the meteorite.   
_You are not the chaos beneath the wings of the Empire. You are the fulcrum that will bring this galaxy back into balance._

There had to be a clue in there. 

Hours later, deep in the ink of night, Kallus had uncovered a secret frequency, a codename, and the true identity of Ashla. 

His hands were covered in sweat, arms shaking with the anxiety of being caught at any moment. 

He set the holopad down after carefully retracing his steps, covering the holes he’d created. Kallus was a trained spy, a slicer, a person that could use this type of information to take down the entire Rebel fleet from the inside. 

Something had flicked on inside of him though. Something long dead, something he’d pushed so far down, Kallus didn’t even recognize it as himself. 

He would not use the code against the Rebellion. He would stand with them. 

Now, all that Fulcrum Kallus had to do was find information that the rebels would need.


	21. The Child

Skystrike Academy was one of the least interesting places in the galaxy, in Kallus’s opinion. Enrolling there was a death wish and a half. But, he assumed, it was far better than living a life in the outer rim, where really all you could do was sit and dream of blasting off of whatever small rock you’d managed to be born on. 

Kallus had been in the middle of a routine investigation of the behaviors of the staff there when he had come across a flight log for a particular case of pilots. 

A routine exercise had turned violent, as cadets were forced to shoot down a civilian transport that had already surrendered. A few refused to do it. 

He raised an eyebrow as he traced the pilots, obtaining more flight logs from them, tracing the insurgency. Kallus wished he’d had the courage to stand up to the Empire like that when he was younger. It certainly would be easier than now. 

But you did Alex. You have to remember how you destroyed The Box, how you tore apart their system to win. You stood up to their corrupt system before you even knew what you were doing. 

Kallus shook the thought. 

Yes, but that line of thinking also got everyone under my command killed. 

Three pilots expressed feelings of dissent for the Empire. Kallus could easily have them court-martialed. He had all the evidence he would need. 

However, there was a far more enticing option. This was a low risk operation and additionally, he knew that the rebellion needed pilots. They’d just had huge casualties trying to deliver supplies to Telarov because his Empire had managed to justify starving the people there. Higher up command couldn’t trace this back to him if the rebels managed to… find out about these dissenters. It would just look like the children were more apt to technology than they had previously tested. 

Transmitting the message would prove the more difficult portion of this task. He couldn’t trust the communication techs with this sort of task, so he’d have to do it himself, in the comms tower where about twenty people were stationed. How could he get around people hearing him? 

Kallus drew up the schedules of the communication techs, pulling from old data sheets and reports. Lunch break was 1200 to 1215. He could be in and out at that time. He’d just have to convince the guards outside the station to let him in. Which wouldn’t be hard. 

Kallus fastened his helmet on. Half intimidation, half protection if things went south.

At 1155, he walked over to the comms station. By 1205, he was in. 

Kallus peaked under desks, checking the wiring, pulling the tap wires out of this particular desk in the back. 

He took a deep breath, and punched in the fulcrum frequency. 

“I have information that may help you replace your stable of pilots. There are Imperial cadets at the Skystrike academy who wish to defect to the rebels.I do not know their names, but they will require some assistance to escape.” The Empire would soon be on their trail though. Kallus was sure that if he could figure it out, so could other agents, other people, and soon. “I suggest you move quickly before the Empire discovers their intentions.” He paused. Anything else he should tell them? Probably not. “Fulcrum out.” He ended the call. 

___

He should report them. It was his duty to the Empire, to everything he’d worked for. Sure, there were some issues with the way the Empire brought about what they were doing here, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be loyal and do his part. 

It had been stupid of him to think otherwise. How could he play his part in this world without being a part of it in the first place?

Kallus could, however, use the information he’d fed the rebels. The thought caught him. He knew that the Rebellion would act quickly on the information. He’d told them to after all. He smirked as he pressed the button on his wrist to call Governor Pryce. 

___

Their spacecraft landed at Skystrike without much fuss. Two TIE fighters escorted them in, flanking their landing on the sides. He had quickly flown with Governor Pryce over to the flight academy to investigate Kallus’s alleged rebels. 

They were met with a rather obtuse instructor who had the gall to inform them that his cadets were “unmatched in skills and loyalty.” 

Stubbornness often yields under pressure. Breaking points are higher. Kallus tuned him out. 

“Agent Kallus?” He zoned back in to Pryce’s snobbish, self-serving voice. “You may begin.”

Kallus nodded. This was his job, his work here. 

“My hope is that I may teach you something today.” 

Oh, so this was the game Pryce was playing. Kallus, since you’ve been so keen to let your rebels get past you, why don’t I teach you how to use your position? You’ve been too nice, Agent, why don’t you try incurring more casualties next time, that would surely bring peace to the system. 

Agent Kallus just frowned in quiet anger, and kept walking. 

Why did he feed this information to the Empire? He could’ve just kept quiet, done his nice little investigation, called it fine, and headed out. No one would be the wiser! But now, with Pryce involved, it was all turning into a mess. 

He would just have to have the information he found fly over his head here. It would be more difficult, of course, but really, he’d gotten himself into this mess, he could find his way out. 

The investigation took the better part of the afternoon. Agent Kallus found nothing of note, and delivered his findings to Pryce on the bridge soon thereafter. He was stalling, whether he knew it or not. 

It was only to prevent the eventual reasoning that Pryce would find something here. 

It was also to give the rebels time to escape, Alex added. 

Pryce was disappointed with him, but she didn’t trust him either. The Skystrike instructor protested. 

Pryce looked at them with a twinkle in her eyes, and Kallus suddenly saw what she saw here. It was an opportunity. Even if there were no rebels here, someone would be blamed. Something would happen as an example, to warn everyone what was to happen if there was even a sentence of dissent in your history. 

She was un-grounding the pilots. She was hoping they’d make an attempt at making an escape. 

Kallus hoped they’d be smarter than that. Hoping they’d see through what she was putting up as a front.

___

They did not. Seconds into the training exercise, a rebel ship pulled out of hyperspace, directly into Pryce’s trap. 

Well, the Empire’s trap. What would be perceived as his trap. Really, Kallus shouldn’t have given this information to anyone at this rate. 

“Four cadets have broken off the group and are headed towards the rebel vessel.”

Kallus glazed down. He was responsible for whatever came next for them. He held tight to his arms, crossed behind his back. He could almost feel his scars beneath the fabric.

Pryce smiled. 

“We have our defectors.”

She pressed a button on the platform, as Kallus watched, standing behind her, frozen.   
The wings sheared off the fighters. They were rigged from the beginning. Kallus watched with horror tingling inside him as Pryce ordered the remaining TIE fighters to target one of the capsules, floating helplessly in the drift of space. 

Alex watched as a person he had tried to help was ruthlessly destroyed by someone that had complete power over them. The explosion of the TIE echoed in the holoprojector in front of them. 

“Now, target the rebel transport.” Her words echoed inside him as he stood there, empty, helpless. 

The TIE fighters swooped around, landing hits across the transport vessel. They had the complete upper hand here, there was no need for this continued destruction. 

Except to convince them that there would be no end to this. Every time they went up against the Empire, they would be met with only death, and loss. Fear was what they hoped to inspire. 

Zeb really had been right. 

The ship jumped at the last second, leaving the three surviving cadets behind. Kallus mourned for them. The prison system here would not be kind to defectors. His first call as Fulcrum had failed. 

___

He escorted the prisoners to the cell block, as he was told. 

“... First, which one of you is the rebel agent?” Kallus didn’t volunteer himself, or the girl he knew was Sabine Wren, Spectre Five. 

He didn’t step in when Pryce figured that out for herself. He just stood, and escorted the other two pilots to a cell. 

The door closed with a sigh. 

Kallus couldn’t help them now, he assured himself as he paced back to his bunk. He couldn’t do anything now. He couldn’t break them out for fear of losing his own position. Maybe he would find them other pilots to make up for this. 

Kallus opened the door to his bunk. He walked over to the bed to sit down, but hit his toe against something on the floor. He cursed quietly, and brought his hand down, and grazed his bo-rifle that he’d left sitting on the floor. It was a bulky weapon to bring into a prison cell. 

He picked it up with light, careful hands. 

Zeb would’ve helped the rebels in his position. He was a man of honor, he couldn’t let those children die alone in the cell. 

Kallus let out a breath. He had to go back. He stood just as the sound of the klaxon rang out through the building, and the halls flashed red. 

They’d be trying to go to the hangar that they’d already been in, that they flew out of this morning. But that wasn’t the closest one. Kallus could get them out of here faster than they could. Sighing, he took off in a brisk trot. 

He ran into them shortly, manipulating the doors to funnel the group to his location. He held out his hand, turning the corner. 

“Don’t shoot.”

“Give me a good reason not to.” Sabine Wren held a stolen blaster high up, pointed directly at his face.

There were no cameras in this section of the hallway. No recorders. No one would know. Kallus had checked, but the tension still built up in his chest. 

Tell them your information, or she’ll have to shoot you at this rate. 

“Avoid levels three through five.” Sabine looked at him inquisitively. Kallus opened the door to let them through. “Hanger twenty-four is your best possibility.”

He stood still, waiting for them to take the information. 

The three cadets circled around him, and two took off towards the door. Sabine held the blaster on him still. 

“Wait,” she called out. “Why should we trust you?”

You shouldn’t. You have no reason to. You’re out of options so I’m helping you escape.   
Because I’m Fulcrum. I fed you this information and I can’t let you fail, because then everything else I send would be untrustworthy. 

Don’t give that away yet. It’s far too important information and you don’t know what these people will do to you if you choose to reveal it. 

Why should you trust me? Why am I doing this? Kallus blinked. 

“Tell Garazeb Orrelios.” He paused. Tell Zeb what? That he’d managed to get this imperial to question his loyalty just enough to feed information to the very organization he was tasked with destroying? That he saw so much of his old crew in the escaping Rebels that it had pushed him over the edge? That saving them was the best thing he could do to try to save the memory of his team? “...We’re even.”

The words held so much more weight than Kallus could manage to put into them. Sabine’s eyes grew wide with realization. 

Kallus stepped back as Sabine stepped forward, taking careful steps away. 

He held a hand on the door. 

“Go!” 

The three ran off, towards the hangar bay. 

Kallus stood for a second, wavering, and then calmly walked back to his quarters. 

He even managed a smile when reports of the defectors getting away came in. 

They’d survived.


	22. Light Cruiser

Agent Kallus was on some sort of light cruiser, hanging above Lothal. The days had started to blur together again for him, like they had in the past ten years. What they don’t tell you about finding a groundbreaking truth about the morals of the organization you serve is that life manages to go on as normal. No one else finds out. Not that it would change anyone he interacted with if they found out.

The Rebellion kept him going. It made all of this worth it, it made him honorable again, because this time it was his choice. He was finally, finally finding a way that would put more good into the galaxy than the hard sought after ideal of a militant peace the Empire was so fixated on. Sure, peace eventually would be nice, but that would never happen under the cold grip of who the controlling powers were now. 

He’d helped the rebels get information that ensured their survival despite the odds, and they’d brought creativity to so many issues he’d thought would do them in for sure. 

He smiled as he thought back to the warhead droid that blew up an entire star destroyer. That had been _quite_ the sight. 

Of course, it did lead Thrawn ever closer to finding their base. 

That was why Kallus stayed. He needed to keep this movement alive from his end so that they could do their part. He was so tired of everything they’d asked him to do, everything they’d thrown at him, but he had to stay. 

He blinked his eyes slowly in the dark as the heavy sound of the klaxon alarm wafted its way into his ears. He wanted to shy away from it. The alarm only meant some innocent citizen was suspected of something and they’d have to go kill them anyways. Kallus was tired of it. He swung over the side of his bed and opened the door to the hallway. 

Stormtroopers clamored past. One had the bright idea of telling him what was going on.

“Battle stations, sir!”

Kallus shut the door. 

Did he really have to?

He took a deep breath, running the water in the sink. He looked up at himself in the mirror. 

Who would it be this time? A lonesome trader who’d come to sell some fruit at the market? A transport ship where one being forgot to stamp their passport? A bounty hunter? A senator? 

Kallus tried to harden his expression in the mirror. It didn’t seem to work, so he let out a breath. 

He couldn’t stay like this for much longer. 

But he had to. 

___

“Don’t you realize how dangerous it is for you to be here? If anyone recognizes you-”

“They won’t. You know how big the Empire is. Most troopers don’t even know what I look like now.”

Ezra Bridger stood in front of Agent Kallus in the holding cell. 

If Kallus could recognize him, he doubted that he could stay hidden for long. 

“I hope that’s true… For both our sakes. If they discover you here, I’ll be executed for treason!”

Ezra chuckled. 

“You might be anyway! We think the Empire was monitoring your last Fulcrum transmission.”

Ice dropped in Kallus’s chest. Monitoring? So they’d know where it came from, not his voice, not who it was. 

“So you… got captured… to warn me?”

“Nope. To get you out of here.”

What? He didn’t need to be ‘gotten out’. Kallus was fine. In fact, he wanted to stay. He was capable of far more good here than he ever could be with the Rebels.

Plus he knew that some of them would be… less than friendly to him. 

Kallus sighed. Wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it. 

“Well I guess I have no choice now.”

“Look, I’m not happy about it either. For all I know, you’re playing the long game to set us up.”

What could he possibly be doing that for? He’d cut them wins that they couldn’t have possibly done on their own. He’d taken down pillars underneath the Empire that would take years to build back up.

The boy was absolutely right to question his loyalty, though. Some people just couldn’t believe in change. 

“I could say the same to you.” Kallus sighed. His anger was getting the best of him. “I suppose for now, we’ll just have to trust each other.”

Their eyes met in a glare. 

“Open this door!”

Ezra grabbed Kallus’s fist and faked a punch, falling back. 

“Stop! I’ll tell you anything!” 

It was all Kallus could do not to burst out laughing as Lieutenant Lyste approached the outside of the cell. 

“A confession already? My, you are good.” 

Kallus smiled at the praise of his colleague, looking over at Ezra again. 

I told you so. I told you I need to stay.

“But it will have to wait. Admiral Thrawn’s fleet has just arrived, and he’s summoned us aboard his ship. Bring the prisoner”

Thrawn? Here? Right now? Maybe there was more weight to what the rebels had intercepted than they were letting on. But taking Ezra with them?

“The prisoner?”

“To show the Grand Admiral how effective I am in dealing with the Rebel threat!”

“He’s a bounty hunter, not a rebel.”

“He’s from Lothal. That’s enough.”

___

“Come on! We’ve got to go!”

“Kallus, come on!”

“There’s been a change of plans now that I’ve captured Fulcrum. I can do more good here.”

___

Agent Kallus was not invited to the upper command briefings on Lothal’s activity after he’d thrown Lyste under the space freighter. It was to _give him some time off_ , but Kallus knew, his instincts were far too attuned to treachery. There was something very wrong with the picture, and Thrawn was just waiting for him to catch up to it. 

The meeting was going on in the room straight across from where he sat at his desk. If he could just see through the walls, find some other angle to this situation…

He brought his head down to rest on his hands. His gaze flickered to the air ducts above the doors. He’d ruled out pulling a stunt like that already, he was far too large and turbulent to avoid Thrawn’s detection. He needed something smaller, like a moveable camera or recorder or, just, something that didn’t exist. 

Kallus sighed, and stood up from his desk. 

Fine then. He’d take some time off. Maybe take a nap. 

What good was he here to anyone if he wasn’t actively in meetings? Actively feeding information to the rebels? Honestly, Kallus, they’d think you better off _dead_.

Caught up in his thoughts, he managed to kick a small mouse droid with his foot, rolling it over on its side and leaving Kallus cussing at the pain in his toe. 

The droid tried to find its bearings on the floor, but found it couldn’t, since the floor was about 90 degrees from accessible to it. 

Kallus picked up the droid to try to right it, but froze. The droid was small. The droid could record audio. The droid was normal enough that it wouldn’t look out of place at an imperial meeting. He smiled. 

He continued back to his room, mouse droid in tow. 

It only took a few modifications before he was able to relay real time audio to his comlink. He wouldn’t be able to record direct audio without it directly connecting to Imperial data, but he cut his losses. 

Now to being able to control the assigned location of the mouse droid. He would use the system itself for that. 

Kallus didn’t know what mouse droids were for, really. They sent messages occasionally, but that was at a snail’s pace compared to live chat via comlink. 

Sending a mouse droid was when you just did not want to talk to the receiver. 

Kallus made a note to tell Thrawn of his eventual defection via mouse droid. 

He found he could control the “destination” point the droid was heading to pretty easily, so for manual control, all he needed to do was set a destination point that would hover a length in front of it. He put the droid down on the floor and tried to drive it around in circles. The droid spun out of control the first time. Kallus reuploaded the code, trying again. This time, the results were workable. He set the droid down, and began to pilot it towards the meeting.

Unfortunately, he was only able to catch the end of it, before the meeting was adjourned, and Pryce and Konstantine were dismissed. He left the droid in the vent in Thrawn’s office though, for safekeeping. 

He sat back on the bed in his bunk, reaching around for his datapad. New messages appeared, apparently they were being ordered to the ground in Lothal. Presumably to investigate some sort of rebel activity but Kallus was certain it’d just be the sort of thing where _random citizen voices concerns about losing their business._

He could steal another mouse droid down there. The one on the Chimaera would stay hidden, and Kallus already had the recorder access on it. 

A notification rang out on his holopad. 

_Be prepared for planetary disembarkment at 1800. Hanger 121._

Kallus sighed, and looked around his room aboard the star destroyer. 

He decided not to bring his bo-rifle. It had soured its memory to Kallus. It was a representation of his past Imperial self, taking things from other cultures and “improving” them. It just didn’t feel like he should be wielding it anymore. Even with Zeb’s blessing on Bahryn. His thoughts drifted as he looked over to the meteorite on the shelf. Its warmth had never faltered. 

I’ll be back on here soon. For you. For Zeb and all the other rebels. 

Kallus took a deep breath in, and closed his door in front of him.


	23. The Ghost

Kallus hurriedly tried to type the fulcrum codes in the spiraling escape pod in the middle of the battle over Atollon. Laser bolts raced past him as the escape pod shook with each ship that passed by. The transmission was sloppy, just a few coordinates, but aimed towards the Ghost, and that was close enough. 

He just hoped the rebels were as keen on picking him up as they had been a few days ago. 

Kallus sat back in the escape pod with anxiety. His head was ringing with a concussion, his bad leg searing in pain. The world was spinning. Or was that just the escape pod. He couldn’t tell anymore. With a jolt, he felt the Ghost lock on to the metal pod. The top hatch opened into the hull of the ship he’d spent so long trying to capture. 

He pulled himself up and into the ship, just as the Ghost made the resounding jump into hyperspace. 

Officially a defector. Officially gone. Maybe even officially dead.

“Throw him out the airlock,” Pryce had said. Well, technically he had gone out the airlock. Just in a bit more controlled fashion than she’d intended. 

Kallus stood and made his way to the back of the hull, pushing past the evacuated rebels. Whispers pushed against his ears as those around him started to figure out who he was. He blocked them out, trying to instead focus on forcing his pain down as he limped to the back. No need to draw further attention. 

There was a collective aura of relief in here, and Kallus allowed himself to feel it for a moment. Someone got the med droid out and started to patch up some of the more wounded rebels. They cried for their losses. They told stories of their escape. Kallus said nothing. No one said anything to him. 

The door at the other end whooshed open, with Kanan on the other side. The Jedi walked across the room, passing through to the cockpit behind him. 

Kallus caught him as he neared. 

“Kanan.” 

He didn’t have anything planned out. Didn’t really know what to say. He was so grateful for the rescue. For everything really. For seeing something in him even back on Bahryn. For acting on his information. For enough forgiveness where they’d rescue him without hesitation. 

“Thank you… for taking me in.”

Kanan reached out for his shoulder. He could tell that the Jedi ought to feel that he meant so much more than that. 

“Thank you for risking everything.”

Kallus looked up. 

They were… thanking him? After all this time?

Kallus just nodded softly. 

Kanan continued through the door of the shuttle, closing it behind him. 

He meandered himself down the wall, trying to sit down. 

Defector. Traitor. 

_You have the heart of a rebel._

Kallus wished he did. 

He was leaving everything he knew behind. The system, his job, everything he’d ever worked for. Was it worth it? Could he have done something different so that he could’ve stayed? 

The med droid made its way over to him, scanning the worst of his cuts and bruises. 

Would he have wanted to anyways?

Bacta stung his face where Thrawn’s death troopers had kicked him. 

No, he couldn’t have stayed. No matter the cost of information to the rebels, he couldn’t serve the Empire any longer. It just wasn’t right. 

The Ghost dropped out of hyperspace again, preparing for their second jump. Kallus had caught word that they were headed to the Yavin system in the outer rim. Honestly, he hadn’t thought that system was habitable, nonetheless a system that would make for a good rebel base. The Empire had existed there at some point, and continued to exist there for enough time to wipe out the population, and had since deemed it not interesting enough to keep tabs on. 

Yes, because nothing there was alive. Until now. 

Kallus closed his eyes against the hull of the ship, listening to the whirr of hyperspace pass beneath him. It was louder here, more distinguishable than anything he’d ever heard on a star destroyer. 

People chatted around him. 

The Ghost, very contrary to its name, was alive. Much more filled with life than anything he’d ever come to know. 

A group of people sat to the side of this room, yelling at a game of cards one of them had brought out. He heard the shuffling and murmur of lower deck planning. 

Kallus began to absentmindedly wonder where the Spectres were, when before he could even form his question, a large form peaked through the door right beside him.

“Kallus! You made it!”

Zeb sauntered over to him and sat down on the floor. 

“You know, I was honestly beginning to wonder if we’d ever get to see you again.”

Kallus smiled lightly. 

“I just hope what I was able to do there has rationalized my place here enough.” 

“Kanan and the others certainly think so, eh?”

“Not everyone, Zeb.” He turned his head to look out across the bank of other rebels. Some quickly turned their gaze away from him as he coldly locked eyes with them. He hoped it would be evidence enough for the Lasat. 

“Aw, come on Kallus, they’ll lighten up once you start working in front of them and not on some far off imp destroyer.”

“I hope so. For all our sakes.” 

His tone drove the conversation to a halt. 

“You know, I am glad to see you again. Zeb.”

“Yeah,” Zeb let out a breath. “Me too. Especially with being responsible for your recruitment and all” He smiled chidingly, then shifted to standing up. 

“Come on. We’ve got a few hours before we reach Yavin. You ever play sabacc up on those imp starships? I can deal you in with Rex and Ezra if you’d like.”

Zeb held out his hand to help him up. 

Kallus eyed the gesture wearily and shook his head. 

“I think I’d hardly be good company today.” He leaned back against the ship's hull, flicking his eyes. 

“Yeah… right.” Zeb brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck. “I figure you should be resting up anyways before you get back and we have to question you and all.”

Kallus had figured there would be some sort of questioning, some sort of “prove it” that he’d have to endure, yes. Or else he’d end up in a holding cell in the depths of the Yavin system. Or maybe they’d let him walk free, and he’d go live on some outer rim planet like Ryloth or Alderaan. Start up a new life, running from the Empire, trying to take out their support. 

He didn’t suppose he could list daydreams as a feature that would prove his loyalty to the rebellion. 

“Yes, I should try to get some sleep before then, I suppose.”

Zeb nodded and stood. 

“Well, the offer stands. Come by if you ever feel like you’re ready to lose.” He grinned.   
Kallus gave a slight smile in return, and watched as the Lasat sauntered over to the galley area. 

___

“State your name and former rank.”

“Kallus. Former Imperial Security Bureau 021. Former Fulcrum agent for the rebellion.”

“Full name, Former Agent Kallus.”

“I was formerly known as Alexsandr Kallus.”

“Thank you, Kallus. State how you were brought here, to us.”

“I was rescued from the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera by the Ghost of Phoenix Squadron as they were escaping the attack on Atollon.”

“How did you come to be a Fulcrum agent, Kallus?”

“I was met by one of your agents, Ahsoka Tano, after an encounter with Garazeb Orrelios on the ice moon Bahryn. She told me of the codes.”

A pause. 

“Very well. Your references have already been contacted.”

He had references?

A face came out of the dark of the room. A woman with orange hair stood in front of him. She looked familiar, maybe a senator? No, a former senator. Mon Mothma. How long the ISB had been searching for her. 

“Welcome to the rebellion, _Captain_ Alexsandr Kallus.”

“Just Captain Kallus will do fine, Mon Mothma.” 

She smiled. 

“We will begin working you into our systems shortly. I don’t want to put you too far in yet-”

“Do you not trust me with the information?”

“No. It’s rather that I’m not sure your colleagues will.”

Kallus nodded, shifting back against the table. 

“Your first assignment is straight forward. I’m putting you on organization and inventory with AP-5 for two weeks, with three or four shifts a week in our investigations division.”

That would be enough for him to prove that he was there to stay, and competent at that. 

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

Mon Mothma nodded.

“Datapad and uniforms are to your right on your way out of here. You might find it wise to… not be dressed as an Imperial.”

Kallus smiled and stifled a laugh. 

“Of course.”

He turned around and left the room. Light filled the corridor as he turned to the right, finally shedding his outward Imperial appearance for a something that blended in more with his people now. 

Finally. 

After so many years of lying to himself, Alexsandr Kallus was finally a rebel. 

___

Unfortunately, being a rebel also came with dealing with the sardonic comments of AP-5 near constantly, as he found out the next morning. 

“Captain Kallus, why must you _insist_ that the food be stored _separate_ from the munitions?”

Because we have to _eat_ it, AP-5. 

“AP-5, in the event of an attack, munitions are far more likely to explode than food, and because we need the food more than the _blaster cartridges_ I say we put them _further away_.”

“However, if we were under attack, wouldn’t it suffice to say that we’d need the munitions more than the food? I didn’t know you humans preferred to fight with dentabeans instead of blasters.”

Kallus held his hand to the bridge of his nose as he tried to walk away from the conversation. 

Unfortunately, in closing his eyes, he managed to run into some other lifeform trying to get somewhere. Or rather, in Kallus’s sake, away from somewhere.

His datapad went flying to the ground, clattering as he bent down to pick it up.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to-”

“General Syndulla, I apologize for that-”

“-Oh it’s fine, oh, Kallus!” She jumped slightly. Probably still wasn’t used to seeing him around in any sort of normal setting.

“Any conversation with AP-5 is enough to drive someone into wanting some sort of head injury.” She smiled back at him. 

“I’m quite fine here General, just a misstep, that’s all.”

“Kallus, it’s just Hera to you.”

“Thank you then, Hera.”

“Well, now that that’s settled, General Dodonna’s summoned you. He said we’ve got intelligence you’d be able to make some sense of, I mean, unless you’re fully content here lifting supplies with AP-5?”

Kallus scoffed.

“I supposed I’d be able to put aside some time for that.”

He smiled, walking with Hera back to the base. 

He could hear the light drone of AP-5 behind him as he began to realize that Kallus had in fact, not put the food supplied with the munitions in the end. 

“We have conflicting information from two differing sources on this mission. One account says that the Imperial fleet was moved to this location, but the other says that they will soon be returning, and just doing a routine sweep of the surrounding area.”

“A routine sweep would be highly irregular at that interval.” Kallus mused out loud “I’ll need to examine the sources of these transmissions. Sources can tell us if information is reliable or not.”

“Very well. I’m sure Dodonna won’t have a problem with you interacting with the files.”

They entered the dark of the hangar in the base, making their way across the hub inside the temple. 

“Kallus, in your time seeing various pockets of insurgency, did you ever come across a cell lead by Saw Gerrera?”

Kallus stopped in his tracks, freezing up completely. 

“You’re not associated with them, right?” His voice was nearly a whisper. Fear gathered in his chest and burned along where he knew his scars still blurred on his chest. 

Hera looked down. 

“One of the sources is from them.”

Kallus crossed his arms across his chest. 

“Then the information they’ve provided is not to be trusted.” He looked away. 

Hera shifted across from him. 

“Okay then. I’ll let the General know.”

“I guess- I guess I’d better keep sorting with AP-5 then.”

“You’re still welcome at the meeting, Captain.”

“I’m not available for this particular case, right now. Not yet.”

Hera’s face searched his for any other information he was willing to provide. She just nodded and turned away, walking towards the briefing room again. 

Kallus stood there for some time, watching her walk into the room from across the hangar.


	24. Zeb

“You know, if you just stand here for long enough, I’m sure you might be able to process half of what AP-5’s been trying to tell you here.”

Kallus turned around, breaking out of the trance he’d fallen into thinking about the implications of consulting with Saw Gererra’s rebel cell. 

“Ah, Zeb! Yes.”

He turned to the side awkwardly, where Zeb had been standing next to him, mirroring his frozen expression.

“Come on. I’ll help you lift some of the heavier stuff then.”

Kallus smiled. 

“Not if I lift it before you can.”

They turned and headed out of the hangar bay. 

“So what was Hera trying to pull you into there? Seems pretty early for you to be going off anywhere.”

“Just a routine cross check of information. Nothing of your concern.”

Zeb shifted. 

“Well, when you’re standing in the middle of a crowded hangar looking like you’ve seen a ghost, I suppose it is sort of a concern of mine.”

Kallus tilted his head. 

“I suppose. It’s an Imperial habit.”

He took a breath. 

“I was called in to a meeting to help cross check information given to us.”

“But you didn’t make it that far.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Kallus paused, trying to search out the right words. Don’t show any weakness. Or do? He wasn’t really sure of anything at this point. 

“The consultant was too personal of a connection to my days with the Empire for me to be of any use.”

Zeb flicked his ears back. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I just need to go help AP-5 lift crates, or organize a data set or something besides that, Zeb.” He was flustered. Zeb expected him to be open with these kinds of things, when Kallus just _couldn’t_. It wasn’t how he was programmed. “I’m sorry.”

He seemed taken aback. 

“Don’t be sorry Kal, we’ve got tons of crates to lift, if you’ve got the impetus to do that by all means put it to good use.”

Zeb gave him a slight smile. 

Kal. He could get used to that one. 

“Doesn’t mean I can’t still beat you at it.”

There was a competitive glint in his eyes. 

Kallus smiled up at him. 

“Oh I’m _certain_ you could, if I played this fairly.” He waved a datapad at him. “Here, hold this for me.” 

Zeb arched an eyebrow, but took the datapad.

“See you in a bit then?” Kallus continued walking among the crates just as AP-5 came around the bend. 

“Oh Zeb, how _wonderful_ that you’ve decided to join us here. And you’ve managed to find my datapad! See here…” AP-5 grabbed the datapad from Zeb as Kallus leaned on a nearby crate. 

“What could you possibly mean by these plans Zeb? You mean to tell me that we put the fuel right next to the medical supplies? What a _travesty_ that would be. Now, you’ll help me do a bit of rearranging on your plans here…”

Zeb gave Kallus a trifling look from across the length between them. Kallus stifled a laugh as AP-5 pulled him back from trying to sneak off. 

Kallus picked up a box snarkily, pushing it to a different stack while AP-5 complained that the “-stock was changing again? _Impossible_.”

Zeb smirked, knocking over a box behind him with one of his feet. 

AP-5 was in stitches. 

Kallus found it hilarious. 

Soon, they were both running around the stacks, avoiding AP-5’s knowing gaze, trying to reorganize the stacks of supplies as Kallus had originally wanted them, all while trying to undo what AP-5 kept putting up. 

By the end of the shift, Zeb and Kallus were exhausted, dripping sweat, and full of the laughter that only comes with subverting a particularly stubborn protocol droid. 

“You know, I was almost sure there that he was _actually_ gonna short circuit at some point,” Zeb mused at the sunset over the base as they headed inside.

“There haven’t been any Imperial reports of droids short-circuiting from torment, ever, Zeb.” Kallus shook his head, some of his hair falling loose in front of his face. 

“Well I’m sure AP-5 would be delighted to be the first.”

They both let out a quiet laugh as the hangar closed around them for the night.

“Thank you for helping me today, Zeb.”

“Anytime Kal. Well, more like anytime you’re good with getting your crate lifting skills handed to you. Handedly.” 

“You know it’s more than that.”

Zeb looked around across the hangar, bringing his hand up to the back of his neck. 

“See, I just hear people talking about you like you’re still Agent Kallus, trying to get information just to betray us and, I don’t know I-”

“You feel responsible for bringing me here.”

“Well, not exactly, I guess, maybe. Ugh. Kallus, you’re much more than you ever were. And many of these guys here don’t see it.”

Kallus tilted his eyes down.

“Agent or not, I’m still the same person I was when I hurt all of them, at some point. Who I’ve become doesn’t change whatever cause they have to hate me.” He let out a breath. “Frankly I’m surprised you’ve moved so easily past that.” It was almost a whisper. 

Zeb paused, letting Kallus’s words sink in, before nodding slightly. 

He cleared his throat. 

“They just need to see that you’re a real person now, I’d bet. Lifting crates helps you do that-”

“-And lifting crates alongside the famed Spectre Four _Captain_ Garazeb Orellious helps with that too.” 

He gave Zeb a shrug and a light smile.

“Aye, you’d better bet it does.” Zeb smiled back. “You wanna come hang out with the boys tonight? We’re gonna play some Sabacc, you could fill in for Ezra while he’s out.”

“Really Zeb, I’ve never actually played before, I can’t-”

“-Oh sure you can, the way Ezra plays you’d think he’d never seen a card game before.”  
Kallus shook his head. 

“One round. Fine. For my good reputation.”

___

“Pure Sabacc!”

Rex groaned. 

“That’s 23 exactly Rex, you can’t tell me you’ve got that beat.” Kallus grinned, preparing to take the winning pot for the second time that night. 

“You know… He might not be able to beat it.” Their fourth player, Cassian Andor, spoke up from his side of the table with a glint in his eyes. 

“Don’t you dare, Cassian.” Kallus felt his win slipping from him. Call it some sort of Fulcrum connection.

“Idiot’s Array.” 

The table devolved into shouts and yelps of glee. Cassian dove into the pot while Zeb clapped them both on the shoulder. 

Kallus at first was angry at the loss, but then joined in the clamor. Idiot’s Array in itself was something worth celebrating. Of course, he’d known the cards were still out there in the deck, he’d been counting, he should’ve seen this coming, should’ve played something in the interference field or-

Or just celebrated the win of his colleague, maybe?

He sat back in his chair, deciding his grin was well fought. 

Despite reservations, Kallus was enjoying himself. What an odd concept. 

He really should be getting some rest before tomorrow. 

Kallus stood from his chair, stretching his leg that had begun to ache. 

“Well, that was wonderful, but I really should get going at this hour.”

Cassian and Rex groaned. 

“Weren’t we just getting started though? I just about had you figured out, you know Kallus.” Cassian sat back, thumbing through his winnings. 

“Honestly, you Fulcrum types are a pain to play with. Spy this and that, you’re counting cards and I can tell.” Rex sat back, smiling. Kallus and Cassian laughed.

“Rex here gets it. All you really need for a good hand is the right time to play it, and with force.” Zeb mimed punching his hand against the other as he stood up from the table.

“Oh really?” Cassian retorted. “Is that why you keep losing then?”

Everyone took a laugh at that one. Zeb stood defiantly over the table.

“No- I- I just-”

Kallus elbowed him. 

“You’ll get him someday.” 

“Yeah, if you remember, Lasats don’t know when to quit.” He laughed. Kallus looked down with a smile. 

Did I really say that to him without jest? Some villain I was. 

“Yeah well, seems like your good Alliance Intelligence spies over here don’t either.” Cassian stood from the table, packing up the cards. 

“Same time next week then boys,” Rex mused. “And hopefully we’ll have Ezra back to cut more of our losses than us, eh Zeb?”

Zeb laughed next to him. 

“Yeah, hopefully.”

Rex pushed in his seat and made his way to the door with Cassian following. 

Kallus filed out, following them.

“If you’re bunking with the officers, you’re gonna want to hang a right up there.” Zeb gestured vaguely down the dimly lit hallway. 

He turned to face him. 

“It’s not hard to find once you get there. Pretty well labeled and all.” 

Kallus turned back. 

“Thank you.”

Zeb nodded. 

“Sure, really, getting situated and all can be a bit rough and-”

“-For everything today. I really do appreciate it.”

Their eyes met for a moment.

“Yeah. I know.” 

Zeb turned away to saunter back to the Ghost. Kallus turned to the right to wander to his bunk. 

Could he really be trying to get to know these people? He would be working directly with Cassian so that would end up fine, but Rex and Zeb? Even Hera was out in the field all the time. 

It was going to be a struggle for him, but thinking back to today’s activities, Kallus decided it was going to be worth it. He just couldn’t allow any of his new acquaintances to get hurt. 

He decided to take a look at the data that Hera had sent to him from the meeting today once he’d gotten to the officer’s bunk. It was his duty to the rebel alliance to do this sort of intelligence work, no matter what his personal biases were. He pulled up his walls he’d built around Onderon, around the Gerrera contingency, around everything he’d been convinced the rebels stood for. He examined the information. 

The rebel alliance was attempting a supply run in the Jalindi system, fed by two informants- the Massassi group and Saw’s group of rebels. The Massassi group predicted that the Star Destroyers surrounding the system would soon move away from the planet that needed the supplies, while Gerrera’s crew predicted that this was a trap, and that they’d be back shortly. 

The Massassi group was a very reliable source in Kallus’s eyes. Any information from them he’d intercepted before usually led to something big, when he was able to get it. The security they had was so tight that even he couldn’t break into it. 

But Gerrera on the other hand… 

Saw’s information was tortured out of people, which made it unreliable. Prisoners would say anything to stop the pain, sometimes things that weren’t true, that people only wanted to hear. It wasn’t 100% reliable. 

Of course, it would depend on the person Saw had been able to extract information from. Were they weak willed? Would they talk easily? How much did they know?

This sort of leak connoted some sort of officer, but could very much have come from just a lowly trooper, trying to get away from whatever Saw was putting him through.   
Kallus knew that first hand. It’s not like his scars had completely faded. 

His trust of the Massassi group’s information still stood. He messaged Hera as such, put the datapad down, and drifted into a floating, dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sir that's my emotional support lasat


	25. Lothal

Kallus and Rex sat adrift in space, idly passing the time. It had been maybe an hour and a half or so since the group of rebels had left for Lothal to try to piece together Ryder Azotti’s cryptic message. They’d been instructed to man the Ghost and to pick them up if the need presented itself. 

So they sat. 

“Have you ever gotten around to the Lothal system, Rex?”

“Not really. Heard so much about it though through these guys. You?”

“Yes, a while ago. Not with the rebels at least.”

“Yeah, heard about that a few times.”

Rex went back to poking at his datapad.

Kallus was sure that Rex had been on the receiving end of his Imperial days with a response like that. He recalled a memory of shooting at the surviving clone troopers on Seelos. Before he knew. 

“I’m sorry about that, Rex.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve all been on the wrong side of the war at some point or another.” 

Kallus turned Rex’s response over in his head. 

“You fought in the Clone Wars then.”

“Yeah, one of the originals. Fought with Ahsoka Tano from Ryloth all the way to Mandalore.”

“Pardon my asking if it’s too much, but what was it like? I grew up watching the war from the Republic side, not seeing any of the real fighting, just sort of… Taking it for granted.”

“We all took it for granted. Without the war, none of us clones would be alive… But the galaxy would be a better place.”

“They’d have found some other method to fight. Their anger doesn’t hinge on you as a clone, Rex.”

“You should try telling yourself that, Kallus.”

Kallus sighed. 

“What was the end of the war like for you then? Ours was all celebration and fanfare of a new age, but I’m sure it was hardly the case for you.”

Rex shifted. 

“It was rough, to say the least. They’d messed with our brains as embryos to ensure our loyalty no matter what but… There were some things I just couldn’t follow through with. I helped Ahsoka escape our cruiser at the cost of letting my entire army go down in it.”

“Wow.”

“It’s okay. They would’ve done the same if it were me.”

“No, they would’ve blindly obeyed alongside you if you didn’t, Rex. Then who would we have here?”

“Maybe some bone headed Loth-rat that could actually beat you at Sabacc?” Rex snickered as Kallus let out a laugh. 

“Come on. I’ll teach you to count the deck. We’ve still got a few hours here.”

“Ah fine. But only to see Zeb’s face when he’s outplayed three to one next time!”

Kallus gave a slight smile. Yeah, he’d love to see Zeb’s surprised look when Rex started predicting his cards straight from his hand. The image was funny enough in itself. What really made it was Zeb’s incredulous expressions, and still managing to play just as well because of a random Sabacc Shift. The Lasat played smarter than he let on, too. Smart enough that he even had Kallus beat sometimes. Or maybe it was experience. 

Kallus just knew that more than anything, however this mission went for Zeb, he wanted him back here to play cards again. Or torment AP-5 again. Or run around base trying to get his datapad back from Cassian. 

He almost shook his head as he shuffled the deck. Rebel Alliance Intelligence Services were nothing like the ISB. Probably in a good way, but it took some getting used to for sure. Cassian, for one, would have been court martialed if he had just _breathed_ on an Imperial document. 

The most interesting thing he’d seen from that man was when he’d chidingly called Ezra “Jabba” again. That was certainly an… experience. To say the least.

Kallus dealt the cards between Rex and himself. 

“You know Kallus, the war left its scars on all of us. You’re never going to fully heal from what you’ve done, but you can help us fight for a new future.”

“That’s why you came back. After hiding for so long.”

“I used to believe that being a good soldier meant doing everything they told you to. Blindly following orders. But our greatest power is to choose what we fight _for_.”

Kallus nodded and played his first card. 

“I just wish I’d been able to tell myself that years ago.”

“Yeah, we all do.” Rex played a card from his hand. “Whenever you and Zeb want to come back to Seelos to retire, I’m all ears. Jupa hunting is the way to go out there.”

He smiled a laugh. 

“Only if they play as well as you do.” Kallus set out his hand on the table, smirking.

“Oh, _sure_ they do.” Rex eyed his cards suspiciously and folded his hand back.

___

Kallus laid out on top the rations that had just been boxed up for a supply run to an outer rim planet. It had been a hard day - he’d managed to unwind some Imperial intelligence just before the end of his shift, but there were still parts of it nagging him. Instead of just retiring to his bunk, he’d figured he’d give AP-5 a hand lifting the heavier boxes. He did not, on the other hand, account for the heat outside today. 

Yavin 4, while habitable, experienced very hot summer rotations, which Kallus found to be excruciating. He was taking a moment of solace in the dullness of being done with a section when the alert came in. 

His comlink buzzed with a call from Hera herself. 

_“Captain Kallus! I need you and Rex on the landing platform pronto! We’re here for fuel and a pickup and then we need to get moving.”_

“Right away, Hera.”

Kallus jumped off the crate with a curt wave to AP-5, and broke out in a brisk trot across the base.

What could be going on? Hera had come back from Lothal a few rotations ago to take Phoenix squadron back, but the tone in her voice told Kallus that something had gone wrong. 

He buzzed an alert to Rex, who he soon spotted making his way across the hangar as well. 

“Do you know what _in the blazes_ is going on here? I haven’t run this fast- in years-” Rex mimed falling over.

Kallus shook his head and continued forward.

“Hera’s mission with Phoenix Squad must have run into something. I’m sure we’re gathering backup to send in under the radar.”

They approached the landing pad as Hera opened up the back loading ramp, before they even touched down. Kallus and Rex jumped onto the ramp just as the fuel lines connected, and Hera brought them into the bay. 

Kallus’s thoughts ran rampant. What had happened to her squad? How had she brought the Ghost back? Where were the rest of the Spectres, why weren’t they here. Where could Zeb-

Kallus’s anxiety grew ice cold. He looked over at Rex to be met with similar fear.   
Hera rushed across the bay, already reaching for her commlink.

“We need to get moving. Rex, contact Joopa base. We’re going to need all the back up we can get.”

“On it.” Rex fell in behind her, climbing the ladder. 

“Hera, wait.” Kallus called to her from below. “What are we doing? Is everything…?” He trailed off. 

“Right now, we are rallying the few forces we can find to help us take back Lothal.” There was an anger in her eyes that told Kallus enough. He gulped down a response.   
Rex reached out to her from the top rung. 

“Hera. The ship is still filling up. There will be time between here and Seelos.”

She shrugged his hand off her shoulder and disappeared back into the cockpit. 

Rex’s face fell with his arm as he paused. He looked back at Kallus with worry etched in his face before scaling the rest of the rungs to follow her up. 

Kallus stood at a loss, still in the cargo bay, as he felt the ship shift beneath him. They were off to Seelos. 

He wandered into the main area of the ship, sitting behind the table, listening to the whirr of the hyperspace engines, the slight cantors of speech where Rex was contacting the clones on Joopa Base and their other friends.

Maybe nothing was wrong. Maybe Hera just needed the attack power of a whole squad out there, and the regular Spectre crew wasn’t enough. 

That wasn’t it. They’d certainly lost something. Hera’s whole squad maybe. He should’ve warned her, the Empire was merciless on Lothal now, they would stop at nothing for her. 

He didn’t allow himself to speculate about the other Spectres. 

He looked up as the doors to the cockpit opened. Hera came through swiftly, trying to avoid anything he was trying to say. 

She disappeared into the room where Rex was talking to someone on the commlink.   
Kallus started to twirl a loose button on one of his gloves. It was ten minutes before he stood, crossing the room to the door where the two were. 

He knocked lightly. 

A muffled “come in” met him. 

Hera sat on the floor to the left of the door. Rex sat across from her in the chair next to the comm. 

Hera had obviously been crying. Rex looked up at him solemnly. 

“We lost Kanan.” 

Oh no. 

Force. 

Kallus sat down on the floor, across from Hera. 

“I’m so sorry.”

She nodded. “We just need to do all we can now. His sacrifice can’t have been for nothing.” 

“That’s why we’re recruiting now,” Rex offered. 

Kallus just nodded. 

He felt this loss. Kanan had been the first to believe in him once he’d gotten to base, and he always had felt a resounding sense of trust from the Jedi. It was a difficult sort of trust to come by. 

He wondered how Zeb was taking it. It was Kanan who’d rescued him from Lasan, who’d taken him in in his species’ darkest hour. Kallus felt a pang of guilt. It was Kanan that had given him reason and methods to pursue getting back at the Empire. 

And now he was gone. 

Hera stifled a sniffle. 

Rex leaned over with his head in his hands. 

“We’ve lost so many good people in this fight.”

Hera nodded. 

“This is so- this was- this. Rex, I loved him. He held me- us together and now, and with the child-” She fell back into her knees. 

He knew Hera and Kanan were close. They spent time together as the founding members of the Spectre crew. There were rumors that they were together but Kallus’s years of inter-species xenophobia couldn’t process that. He’d chosen to ignore the rumors. But a child? She was saying she loved Kanan? 

Kallus set aside time later to process this. 

He turned to her. 

“The life Kanan led lives on in all of us. He’s part of the force now, he lives in our actions, our thoughts, the paths that he helped us to. The least we can do will be to help the team take back Lothal. We need to focus on the mission now.”

Rex nodded. Hera sat back. 

“Thank you, Kallus.” She tilted her head against the metal of the ship’s hull. 

He wished he could believe half the words he’d stammered out. 

The trio fell into a comfortable silence as the ship flew in hyperspace. Eventually, Hera headed to her own bunk to rest, leaving Rex and Kallus alone to man the ship. 

Kallus stood, stretching his leg from sitting so long. 

Rex spoke up silently from his chair. 

“I don’t think Kanan ever really liked me, but he learned to respect me. It was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen a Jedi do for me, if I’m being quite honest.”

Kallus shifted against the door.

“I’d say it certainly prepared him for meeting me. He always seemed to trust me from the start. I never got that.”

“I can’t imagine what Hera’s going through.”

“Were they…?” Kallus threw the incredulous sentence out there. Rex seemed to know more than he did.

“Are you that blind, Kallus? Really?” He smiled a bit for the first time since boarding. “Yes, and Hera is very much pregnant with their kid right now.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good for them- er, her, now.” He buried his face in his hand.

“Really Kallus are you that blind to just plain romantic interaction? Like, I knew that you were bad with Zeb going over your head and all but these Imperial-”

Hold on.

“-Zeb?” Kallus managed to sputter out. 

Rex made a dismissing gesture with his arm. 

“Oh you’ve got to figure that one out on your own, bantha brains. Don’t worry about it.”

Kallus shook his head and blinked, eyebrows high. Rex turned back to the comm station. 

He pressed the button on the door, and headed to the common area to get some rest of his own.

___

“Perhaps the rebel Alliance will see our victory and finally send support.”

“We took Lothal without them. We can keep it without them.”

“Zeb, you may be right. Listen.”

Shouts rang out in the streets below them. The people were cheering, fireworks going off. Near the dome, the remaining storm troopers were being piled on by the locals.   
They’d done it. The rebels had been able to pull off the impossible. They’d finally driven the Empire off of Lothal. 

They’d driven out the hate and repugnant stench that Kallus himself had introduced here so many years ago. He hadn’t damaged their spirit here, he’d done unforgivable things to them absolutely, but he hadn’t destroyed them. And now, he could fight with them. 

Kallus looked over to Zeb. 

Thank you for helping me be a part of this. Thank you for saving me from the fate I would’ve met with everyone else on that dome today, and I would’ve met it with all the glory I’d think I deserved. 

Their eyes met steadily, with the joy that comes with a melancholy victory. Zeb latched a hand on Kallus’s shoulder, and pulled him into a tight hug.

Kallus gave a yelp of sudden movement, and tensed up. He definitely wasn’t prepared for this. 

“We _kriffin’_ did it guys. Lothal is back! We did it!”

Mart mimed Zeb’s flourish of a hug and joined in on Zeb’s other side. 

Soon latched on to him was Rex, Hera, Sabine, everyone in the cockpit was in some version of tears. 

They echoed Zeb’s cry as they whooped and hollered with the victory. Chopper even came in to run over a few toes. 

Hera set down the Ghost outside of town so that the crew could have a short leave on the planet before they had to tackle going back to Yavin 4. It was “to get fuel”. 

The crew went out to celebrate anyway. 

Kallus opted to stay back with the Ghost to keep watch. 

Even though he was on their side, even though he’d helped with the liberation, this was still too personal. They would know him. The city would beat him to the ground like they did the stormtroopers at the hangar bay. And honestly, he would deserve it. 

This wasn’t his time for celebration. He could take sitting in the Ghost though, paging through the report he was going to file sometime in the next rotation. 

In addition to all that, Kallus was tired. He hadn’t slept since his previous shift on Yavin 4, and sleep was trying to catch up to him. He had his datapad sprawled out on the table in the main room, blinking away sleep when he heard the others come back. 

They all managed to retreat to their rooms, but Kallus heard one head poke into the main room. He almost feinted being asleep for fear of being disturbed, but was glad to glance Zeb’s ears poking out. 

Kallus looked up. 

“How was the party scene down there?” 

“Aye, quite a ruckus if you ask me. Did you not get out there at all, Kal?”

Kallus shook his head. 

“Someone has to fill out our mission report here, if not any of you.” He smiled and pushed his head off the table to lean back in the chair. 

“Come on, you have the rest of your life to fill out mission reports. Come outside, see the fireworks.” Zeb gestured generally at the holding bay towards the exit. Kallus titled his head lazily. 

“Fine. I’ll allow you five minutes of my time then.” Kallus stood sardonically, and managed to follow Zeb’s practically glowing smile. 

The night air was cool against the stuffiness of the Ghost. Kallus looked across the waving grass, feeling the cool breeze of the day across his face.

He felt the weight of Zeb’s hand on his shoulder. Its weight was familiar, comforting. It gave him protection from what was to come. It stopped his mind from racing at the sight of a liberated Lothal. Closing his eyes, he took a breath in, and let it out through his nose. He was done here. No more Imperial system here. Just another decisive victory for the rebels.

The braying of the wild loth-cats took his thoughts back to the present. Kallus turned from the plains back to his friend that stood before him.

The stars were very pretty tonight.

“Do you ever feel bad for them, Zeb?”

“For who?”

“The people that work for the Empire. The stormtroopers that didn’t know what they were getting into.”

Zeb sighed. 

“If they were complicit in any of this, then they’re ignoring the problem. Which is just as bad as being a part of it.”

“And what if they’re just blind to their own future? What if they’re all just fools?”

Zeb eyed him weirdly. Kallus worked around sleepy roadblocks to try to remember where he’d gotten those words from.

“Sometimes, you can live your entire life being a fool. When it comes down to it, you really just depend on yourself to change.”

“Zeb, I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

“Sometimes you just need the right warrior to guide the fool.”

They stood in silence for a moment longer, staring up at the stars. 

“Did I ever tell you the story of how I met Ahsoka, Zeb?”

“You met Ahsoka? But didn’t she… You know…?”

“Yes, she did die before I formally accepted _your_ invitation to the rebellion but she was the one who really showed my foolish self the way. In fact, the three different ways.”

Kallus knelt down to draw the three circles in the dirt. Zeb crouched next to him.

“Karabast, you don’t mean…”

“She told me of your Prophecy of Three. It cued me in to the Fulcrum signal and everything. I owe it to you for my just, managing to pay attention to that.”

“You don’t have to owe me anythin-”

“-I owe it to you and the Lasat species to remember this. I owe it to myself to make up for what I’ve done. And I can’t do anything to help them like I’ve done here on Lothal but I promise- I promise-” 

Kallus stopped. He was ranting. He was tired. 

“What happened on Lasan is over now, Kal. I’m here for you. We will fight to make sure that no one makes you do that kind of stuff again.”

Kallus stared off across the plains again. He hadn’t thought Zeb would be that thorough in his forgiveness, mostly because he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself that much.   
The bond they’d managed to form over the past few weeks was stronger than anything he’d ever allowed himself to feel, and he knew that now from almost losing him in the dome earlier today. 

He felt an unfamiliar feeling of warmth coming over him, rising from his chest to his cheeks. Kallus glanced across the Lasat sitting in front of him, across his great, striped arms, his ears, finally meeting his eyes. What was he doing?

_Oh, you’ve got to figure that one out on your own._

The bow he’d given him on Bahryn. 

_I need people who trust me, and who I trust._

Stacking crates on Yavin 4. 

_He won’t be the last one to love you, Alex._

Lee’s words echoed in his head from so long ago.

Oh. 

Oh no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy double chapter friday featuring that good cassian/jabba content


	26. The Warrior

“Alright Zeb, just remember, this is a stealth mission, we’re not supposed to be shooting at these guys.”

“If these blasted stormtroopers keep looking at me like that, I just might have to.”

Well it’s not entirely their fault at that rate. Who’s even seen a Lasat these days? And even if they hadn't, who really could manage to _not_ look at Zeb in particular.

“Just, try to appear like a normal being for once.”

“Well it’s not their fault I’m so handsome.”

He flashed Kallus a chiding grin. 

Kallus felt his eyes go wide, somewhat frozen to the spot. 

Don’t worry about that, Kallus, keep moving, _don’t worry about it._

He brought his hand up to the bridge of his nose in mock disappointment to try to save the interaction. He was sure it didn’t work. 

He didn’t have time to deal with this right now, the mission, they were on the mission here. He’d try to consider this later when he could only disappoint himself.

“If we’re to meet up with Hera’s informant, we need to be undetected here. We need to find the location and get out. It’s a routine function.”

He added a bit of his old edge to his voice on the end there, to try to convince this man to stop goofing around. 

“Aw, come on Kal, what are we up against this time? Bunch of imps all coming at us at once? Our troops scattered across the field as we try to take a point? What kinda fear mongering-”

“Zeb. This is a routine patrol.” Kallus leaned back to look up at him, crossing his arms. “We are not going to be blasting anything except maybe Hera’s expectations for us, clear?”

Once they were done with this mission though…

Kallus let the thought trail off in his head. They’d encountered so many setbacks trying to obtain this information. The Rebel Alliance knew that the Empire was building a superweapon, all they needed to do was to find more information, decode it, and move on to the next informant. It wasn’t a life that Kallus had ever dreamed of. But fighting alongside his friends, trying to drive out the “peaceful” Empire from the galaxy was enough for him. This mission would be over soon, the details of the superweapon were just the first steps in that direction.

“There it is.” Zeb gestured with his hand over a derelict housing unit. 

Kallus pressed an electronic buzzer against the door, and was let in with the crackle of electricity failing. 

There was an inhumane form at the end of the room, tentacles tracing lines in the dusty air. It writhed in circles, as if searching. It didn’t seem actively trying to kill them yet. Maybe that was the informant? Kallus had definitely had his fair share of xenophobia forcibly beat out of him since joining the rebellion. 

He looked over to Zeb. 

In more ways than one.

“Hello?” Kallus called out. 

A form approached from behind the monster, limping from the darkness into a spot of light from the dusty window. 

Even without the light, the ambience, the sound was recognizable. 

Kallus’s eyes grew wide as he froze to the spot. 

Of course, he’d known he was going to have to meet Saw Gerrera face to face at one point in his Rebellion career. He just didn’t think it was going to be today. He pressed his commlink.

“Hera, you’d better come down here. We’ve found him.”

Saw just sat, in front of the tentacled creature, attentively. 

“I can wait for your rebellion friends for this.” His voice was cold, strained against metallic lungs.

On cue, Hera entered the room followed closely by Rex. The slight movements of the door shone light against the dust of the room. 

Saw turned back to face Kallus himself.

“I was wondering when the force would bring us together, Alexsandr Kallus.” Saw took a breath through his breathing apparatus. “Or should I call you ISB-021, Agent Kallus?”

Hera moved forward, but Rex caught her by the shoulder, holding her back. Zeb growled quietly. 

“Do your friends know? Do they know every single treacherous thing you did to their people? Does your Lasat in particular know of what you did when you were on Lasan?”

“Yes.” Kallus stood tall, arms folded in. “They know more than you do, as a matter of fact.”

Zeb stepped forward behind him. Kallus looked up at him. Teeth bared, ears pointed back. 

Kallus lightly touched the side of Zeb’s arm, trying to tell him that his honor was less important than the mission. Zeb turned to look down, his expression lightening. 

Saw turned to Hera and Rex. 

“How can you allow him to be with you? He’s an Imperial, they’ll never change.”

Hera shifted defiantly. 

“Saw, this is not the discussion we came here for.”

“But isn’t it? You came here for me to cease and desist using the mairan to obtain information, haven’t you? You don’t realize what you could learn from your prize here.” He turned back and started to circle around Kallus. “ISB agent… the things you must know…” Saw reached up to Kallus’s face. 

Kallus slapped his hand away. Zeb pushed closer from his other side.

“The difference between the Imperials and the Rebellion has always been linked to our empathy, Saw.” Kallus backed away from him, using his hand to tell Zeb to do the same.  
Saw held no anger in his eyes. Only ice. Kallus had seen that reflection before in himself, only as an Imperial agent. 

He will do whatever he needs to for the information he wants. He has no qualms with how he gets it. The information he was set to give us here will be worthless to us in the long run, we cannot accept it. 

The only answers he can provide are those that he knows himself.

Should Kallus ask him? The questions he’d wondered for so long, the scenes he spent so long reliving in his head? He needed closure on this. 

He lifted his head in the quiet room, meeting Saw’s eyes. 

“We came here on a mission for information, Saw, but I see now that you were never going to give it to us without a trade. And I am afraid that we cannot stand for that.” He gestured outwards with his arm, swiping the air. “I do have a personal question for you though, Saw.”

“What are you doing, Kallus?” Hera’s tone connoted a worry here. That what? He was going to cause a fallout between this group and the rebellion? It would hardly be the main cause. 

Saw turned his head to raise an eyebrow.

“Go on, Imperial.”

“Do you remember Onderon? Your weapons factory to be quite clear. Tell me about it.” There was an anger in his eyes as he spoke. His voice did not waiver. 

Saw smiled, his eyes flicking to the three others in the room.

“So you haven’t told them everything?” He paced towards the group behind Kallus, turning away from him. “The Imperials found our weapons factory on Onderon. We’d been making too many mistakes early in the war, mistakes we would not make in the future.” 

Rex shifted to stand on his other leg while Zeb turned to watch Saw pace the room. Kallus remained facing the other direction. He would not let him see his reaction to this.

“The Imperials invaded our land, threatened our great city of Iziz, and then, at the peak of it all, bombed our great factories because they thought one of them might contain weapons that they had requested the production of. Set us back years. Years that we couldn’t spend serving _them_.”

Kallus just stood, arms still crossed against his chest, hands balled into fists. 

“Now tell them about what you did to retaliate, from your perspective.” The ice in his voice was back. Agent Kallus was getting this rebel to reveal all the information he needed his squad to hear. 

Tell them yourself. Tell them who you murdered, coldly, with no mercy. 

“We fought off the Empire in the only way we knew how, we cost them great losses and they left.” Saw told the story as a war veteran, proud of what the other side had lost.  
“You left, so much, out of that.” 

Kallus turned around coldly. 

“I don’t care whose side you were on, even if you can’t see mine, but the cold murder of an entire, unarmed group of people cannot be reconciled.”

Zeb laid a hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him back.

“You were responsible for the death of people that couldn’t fight back, people that were helpless.” Alex was yelling at this point. 

He stopped for a moment, waiting for silence to fill the room again. 

“Tell me, do you stand by your actions?”

Saw brought the quiet back for a moment, but met his eyes with steel of his own.

“I stand by my actions. And I would do it again if it meant freedom for one more system in the galaxy. The only good Imperial,” He motioned as he held a blaster up above Kallus’s forehead. “Is a dead one.”

Kallus’s arms flew quickly, hitting the blaster out of Saw’s hand, clattering on the floor. He dove for it more quickly that Gerrera was able to, and brought it up to face him. 

Hera, Zeb, and Rex all similarly drew their blasters. 

“The Rebellion’s dealings with you are over, Saw.” Hera put her blaster back as Saw’s hands came up in a surrender motion feebly. 

His eyes connected with Kallus’s, and he cocked an eyebrow. 

Do it Kallus. Gun me down. Avenge your squad. 

Kallus faltered.

Gerrera smiled. 

“You can’t do it, eh imp?”

Kallus holstered the blaster.

“We are not the same. I will not stand for a world where violence is the only solution for something that has hurt me.”

“You will never know peace in your lifetime like that.”

“Only Imperials talk like that, Gerrera. This rebel alliance and I will be the one to make sure that peace is possible. You will not.”

When the end of this war comes, and it will, I will make sure that our ruling force will not be anything like the Empire. We need to be ruled with a force that has empathy at its core, not for conquering worlds with a delusion of peace at its heart. 

“Then my work with you is done, Rebels.” His tone darkened, and Saw limped away from them, back into the depths of his hideout. 

The rebels took a collective breath. Kallus let out a breath, closed his eyes, and brought his hand to his nose. 

He turned around to the crew. 

“I- I’m sorry, that got out of hand-”

He was interrupted with a glance from Hera, who reached out to touch his shoulder.  
Rex looked over to him. “That took courage, Kallus.” 

Kallus nodded. 

“Thank you,” he mumbled. “I’d really just like to get back to the Ghost right now.”

“Yeah, us too Kal.” Zeb hung back with him as they weaved through the building’s entrance. 

It was only once they got outside that he realized Zeb had his hand on his shoulder still. He shrugged it off to avoid the more unsavory gazes. 

Zeb glanced down at him.

“So… Alexsandr?”

Kallus shifted, folding his arms across his chest. 

“No. Well, not exactly. Not anymore.” He ran his hand through his hair. 

“Ah well, it clears things up anyways cause I always thought the ‘A.’ on your file stood for Agent.”

Kallus looked at him, shaking his head with a smile. 

“You fool Lasat.” He mimed a punch at Zeb’s arm. Zeb leaned back towards him, shoving him a few feet in the process. 

Kallus stood up, laughing, just as the first blaster bolt hit the ground next to him, spraying sand between the two. 

Red bolts rained down on them from the derelict buildings.

The crew jumped into action, dodging fire from all over.

“Get to cover!”

Kallus ran back towards the walls of the complex. Blasted Imperials had found them out here. Saw must’ve taken his opportunity and betrayed their location. He loaded his weapon, firing at the rooftops where the stormtroopers hid. Zeb stood next to him, sniping rebels from the rooftops as precisely as he could.

They were outgunned, outnumbered, but not yet outplayed.

We need to do something drastic that will let us get away. Kallus looked around at his options, and then back across to Zeb. The lasat had brought a few thermal detonators with him in case the mission went south, and well, south it certainly had gone. If they could position the blasts right, they could bring down the facades of the buildings where the snipers were perched. 

Kallus pulled out his comlink.

“Everyone, move away from the buildings. We’re going to blow their cover into the sky.”

Zeb looked over to Kallus with understanding, and started to run back from their cover as he pulled the detonators from his belt to roll back. 

Rex pulled his from his belt across the courtyard, and rolled those to the line of fire opposite them.

The shots could find them more easily now. One shot buzzed far too close to Hera for his liking, as she jumped to avoid its graze, just barely. 

Kallus looked back.

“Alright, now!”

A huge explosion rocked the sector. Kallus was flung into the middle of the road with the force, head spinning. 

He tried to get a grip on his surroundings, but it was far too dusty. Far too quiet. 

Where were the others? He couldn’t see Hera or Rex, or even Zeb’s large form anywhere through the dust. He gave a few weak coughs, trying to stand up. 

The blaster fire had ceased, he noted. 

But where was his crew? 

His ears rang as he knelt down in the dust again, realizing that his arm was stinging, probably singed by the flames of the explosion and the dust that now covered them. 

He was almost near panicking. They’d leave him here to die alone, figuring he didn’t make it out in time. His breaths came ragged as the shadow appeared against the dust.  
Kallus’s breath caught in his throat.

An all too familiar silhouette. 

The dust, the shape, the explosion. Saw must have sent his mercenary in to finish him off.

Time slowed. Kallus tried to get up, to run, but his legs still felt like jelly, his arm still burned from the explosion. 

He opted not to look.

His breaths became more ragged as the great purple feet came into view, even with his head down. Kallus gulped. 

“Kal, are you okay?”

Zeb.

“Come on, we have to get moving.”

It’s just Zeb. 

“Aw, your arm’s all messed up, Kal. Kal? Captain Kallus? Can you hear me?”

Kallus looked up to meet Zeb’s eyes, trying to find comfort, but only finding his own fear. His hair hung low in his face. 

“I- I can. Hear you. I can’t move. Yet.”

Zeb sighed heavily.

“We have to get you back to the ship, Imperial reinforcements will be here any second.”

Zeb looked down at him again.

“May I carry you, Captain?”

Kallus nodded, and felt Zeb’s arms wrap around him as he held him tight and broke out into a run. 

His arms were so strong, and much softer than Kallus remembered. He absentmindedly twirled a bit of the fur over the hands that carried him. 

He was fine. The crew was alive. Nothing had come back to finish him off, only Zeb had come, only Zeb had come to save him. 

They approached the Ghost, and Zeb set him down on the floor of the cargo bay as they lifted off. Kallus mourned the parting of Zeb’s arms holding him, but made no protest laying down on the hard metal.

Hera came over to kneel by him, while Rex went to grab their supply of bacta. 

Kallus tried to sit up, but was forced back down by Hera to his left. 

“Not yet, Kallus. Let’s get you patched up first.”

He begrudgingly tilted his head back down as Rex brought over the patches. 

“‘M fine,” Kallus mumbled.

“No, you’re not,” Zeb looked across to Hera with worry. “His arm took a beating but I really can’t seem to work out what’s going on with his head.”

“Probably a mild concussion. Plus I’m sure his encounter with Saw just did wonders for him.”

Rex laid out the bandages on his arms.

“It’ll probably scar, we don’t really have enough to cover the whole thing.”

“‘S fine. Not- it’s not my first.” The world was spinning again. Kallus was probably going to pass out. That was fine. 

He looked back up at Zeb. The uncertainty on his face caught him off guard as Rex handed him one of the patches. 

How could he have mistaken his best friend for his worst nightmare?

Kriffing lasats. 

Kriffing brilliant eyed, strong armed, tall, and frankly brilliant creatures. 

And the only one left in the whole galaxy was his best friend. Who’d just run through a literal explosion to save him. Force, he didn’t deserve this. 

Hera stood to leave with Rex to enter the coordinates for the jump, but Zeb stayed, sitting with him. 

It was up to him to make a better future for them possible. 

Kallus gave a deep sigh, and sat up, leaning on his right arm. 

“Hera probably wouldn't want you to do that just yet, Kal.”

He groaned. 

“I’m fine Zeb.” He looked over his shoulder. “And someone’s gotta go tell the Rebellion why Saw Gerrera won’t be flying on our frequencies anytime soon.”

Zeb shook his head with a smile. 

“You and your mission reports.” He glanced to the side. “Sure you’re good though?” 

“I could use a hand getting up.” He could’ve managed it on his own. Probably.

Zeb walked over, using Kallus’s right hand to pull him to his feet. Kallus stumbled slightly on his bad leg, admittedly still dizzy from the explosion. Zeb caught him from falling over. 

“You sure you’re good?” He gave one of his trademark smiles, tinged with a bit of genuine worry.

“Only as good as this report is going to turn out.” Kallus rolled his eyes and returned his smile.


	27. Yavin 4

Reports flew in from all over. Alderaan was gone. Blown up completely. 

Kallus held his head in his hands as intelligence rushed around him, trying to pick out new information. 

The Rebellion had known for some time that the Empire was building a superweapon, but nothing had been told to them of this kind of scale. 

Then they’d tested it on Jedha. 

Then they’d killed Cassian and so many others with it right in front of them on Scarif. 

The Empire wasn’t even trying to hide behind their niceties anymore. They would rule only by fear. 

If Kallus hadn’t defected months ago, well, he’d certainly be dead by now. 

Still holding his head with one hand, he forced himself to replay the video captured by an orbiting freighter. 

A flash of green light, presumably from the large stores of kyber crystals the Empire seemed bent on collecting, and then the planet was completely gone. It was like a large blaster bolt, far stronger than anything he’d ever seen. The surface of the planet seemed to ripple seconds before it was engulfed in a perfect round explosion. 

They’d been given no warning, no chance to leave with their lives. Kallus wondered if Zataire’s son had still been on the planet. 

He closed his eyes, grieving for the billions of beings that had been lost. 

Kick them while they’re down. Win every time, including the battles in the future. Make them not want to fight anymore. 

Kallus was tired. He hadn’t slept in over a full rotation, and he was feeling it. There had to be something, some sort of string he could pull from these images that showed where they could hit this thing. He’d been writing up ideas, of course, but none of them were sure fire ways of destroying the whole Death Star. 

A shot directly at the crystal inside of the main reactor was the only way that they could get the thing to explode fully, and everything leading to that would be locked down. There was no way of hitting the beam down the nose either, that was blocked off with a gate that only opened when firing. 

You could, theoretically, sneak in there in the 1.7 seconds before it fired and get a shot off. The pilot would die in the process though. And the beam shot by the crystal might as well go through whatever the pilot was shooting, and make the whole operation worthless. 

Worthless operation alright. Kallus was losing hope, quickly. 

He looked across the room to find similarly bleary eyes. There was no way Cassian’s strike team had gotten out with the plans. They all knew it. It was simply up to them to come up with something, and something fast. Before, well, before most of the galaxy was completely gone. 

This was what they had been building above Geonosis. This was what the Empire had deemed secret information, secret enough to wipe out an entire species. 

Kallus had seen enough. He tried to remember the shipment numbers the Empire had sent through to the planet when he’d looked into the planet before. Just durasteel, most of it, the crystals, everything that would build a base properly. 

He pulled up the information on the screen in front of him from the third party merchants before it abruptly stopped a year before the xenocide. 

One delivery caught his attention. 

Mouse droids. 

Kallus remembered vividly back to his Fulcrum days, how easily he was able to rewrite the mouse droid code to transmit conversation. He’d certainly be able to find out things about the Death Star like that. 

If he were aboard the station. 

If he still had access to the Imperial message delivery system. 

He could slice into it! 

No, the Empire was too persistent. Their security was woven like thick armor. 

He could, he could do something. He could pose as a new security officer enlist and- and be assigned to a completely different base, and court martialed within two minutes of someone scanning his background. 

He pushed back from his desk. 

He was no good to the rebellion like this. Not that he was ever enough for them. He needed a walk, or to lift crates or something. It was too much to process. 

Kallus slid through the doors to Alliance Intelligence with practiced ease. He worked his way to the front of the base through the maze like tunnels of the temple, turning corners. 

He was met with the cool night breeze of Yavin 4 on his face. He stood on the runway, under the shelter of a random X-Wing fighter so that no one would see him. He climbed the ladder swiftly, opting to sit on top of the ship rather than below it. 

He gazed out at the stars. He knew that somewhere out there, Alderaan’s sun would be bright enough to see from here. 

_The core worlds are there… across from that, towards the north…_

He settled on a general grouping of three stars that could’ve been Alderaan’s.

He bowed his head.

_Your stories, your people, your history. Gone._

An entire planet. Civilization. He should’ve done more to prevent it, and started asking questions earlier. 

“Hey, Kallus, what are you doing all the way up there?”

He almost fell backward off the hood of the ship, but managed to grab a small ledge on the cockpit window.

A large purple form stared up at him from the relative darkness. 

“Ah! Zeb. I’m…” Stars. What was he doing up here? He sighed heavily. 

“Yeah… me too.” Zeb called back. “You mind if I come up?”

“Not at all.” 

Kallus tried to scoot to the side of the X-Wing while Zeb swung with his feet across its great wings. 

“Show off,” Kallus chided.

“Oh you know it.”

They fell into a comfortable silence, staring up at the clear night sky.

“You’ve been staring at the Alderaan system, haven’t ya.”

“Yes.”

“Their culture will live on, Kal. There are people across the galaxy who knew of what it was like there, they can tell stories of the people we lost today.”

Kallus listened intently. Zeb of all people knew what it was like to be on the outside of this kind of event, but he just felt empty. 

“Kallus. Come on. Tell me one thing you knew about Alderaan.”

I know that it’s gone. That people lived there. Captain Zataire’s son had been there. He was dead now. Captain Zataire, who was probably secretly mourning the loss of his son, because he could not show that side to the Empire. In his head, Kallus replayed the scenario where he’d been brought aboard the Lawbringer just before heading to Lothal for the first time. 

He sniffed away tears that were starting to run from his nose.

“They used to make really good wine.”

Zeb closed his eyes and smiled. 

“Course that’d be what you know about them. Point stands though - every part of their civilization lives on in people across the galaxy. It’s all a part of the Ashla now.”

Kallus nodded.

“That’s how you’ve come past your losses at Lasan then.”

“Well, in a roundabout sort of way, yes.”

Zeb titled his head a bit too much, flicked his ears back. Kallus figured it was just a boiled down version of the truth. 

“We’re a product of the people around us Kal. I know you hold your first squad very close to you, even now. But they’d be proud of you. I’m proud of you.”

That was besides the point. Kallus didn’t need to hear that right now. 

He didn’t want to hear that right now. He just wanted to look at the stars, and live inside of a moment where they weren’t on the brink of jumping into a cliff where there were no more rebels in the galaxy because they were all dead. 

Kallus just wanted to sit on the X-Wing with Zeb for once, maybe stare into his eyes again, feel the strength in his arms as he held his shoulder. 

Of course, this would all be if he so inclined. 

His feelings for Zeb scared him. Human related species just weren’t allowed to go outside their own, it was basically a death sentence. Ostracization, snide comments, things the likes of which he didn’t want to imagine. 

He’d certainly been a part of enforcing that sort of thing with the ISB. He’d never really thought about being on the other side. Keeping work at the forefront of his mind had always pushed any sort of attraction to anyone out of the way, because he didn’t have time for that. 

People like them didn’t lead happy lives where they went off to some nice planet to relax and be themselves. It just didn’t happen. People like them got blown up by laser beams shot into planets. 

Even just sitting with him, like this, it was too much, if someone saw them they’d start speculating and Kallus would have rumors swirling about him and eventually the Rebels would have no choice but to throw him out. Or kill him. 

This, whatever it was to him, wasn’t normal. The Empire had at least gotten that drilled into him. 

Zeb shifted to lean closer to him. 

Kallus tensed up, and turned away. 

“I- I really should get going back. Now.” He couldn’t meet Zeb’s eyes again. “You know, Intelligence needs me and all.”

“Of course. Yeah, you should get back.” Zeb sounded downtrodden. 

Kallus started to clamber down the ship.

“Good luck there Kal.”

He stopped, looking up at Zeb one last time. 

“Thank you.”

On the way back, his commlink buzzed. 

_“The Princess escaped with the Death Star plans, and she’s headed our way now. Prepare the encryption codes, we’ve got a fighting chance now.”_

Kallus gave a sigh of relief. They’d managed to find hope after all. He set off to the encryption room, ready to tear apart the system he’d put so much of his time into. 

___

Kallus watched tensely as their fighters were picked off one by one. 

He saw defector Han Solo save the pilot that would make the shot that everyone had marked as impossible. He cheered with the rest of the Alliance as the Death Star collapsed in flames, taking the Empire aboard with it. 

It was a huge victory for the Rebellion. It was unbelievable, in the very sense of the word. 

The crews rushed out to greet the pilots, and Kallus fell along around them. He briefly spotted Han from across the hangar, caught like a deer in the headlights seeing him here. Kallus also paused, staring. 

A throng of taller rebels came between them, and Kallus used the moment to slip away.   
Well. Not the first awkward moment he’d had here. Still as reckless as ever though. But that had benefited them today, so he could give Solo a pass for marring his nigh perfect Imperial record. 

Kallus smiled. He couldn’t believe he actually used to buy into that system. 

A raucous roar rang out across the hangar. The rebellions heroes of the day crossed the landing strip, ready for whatever the Empire could throw at them next. 

Kallus just sat back, going over everything they’d need to do in the coming weeks. 

They’d need to find a new base. They’d need to defend this one from attacks that would inevitably come. Helping relocate Aderaanian refugees wouldn’t be outside the realm of their efforts either. 

But it would be easier now. People across the galaxy would see their victory and start to question the very pillars that the Empire stood on. 

He looked across the hangar bay to find a pair of purple ears sticking up from the din. 

Kallus made his way over to Zeb, also finding Rex and Hera standing alongside him. 

He gave a friendly wave, but was soon pulled into a very furry, very tight hug from Zeb.

Yeah, we did it alright. The Rebellion’s path to victory is just getting started.


	28. Hoth

It had been about a year and a half since the Battle of Yavin. The ever growing main contingency of rebels had managed to establish the start of a new base on the planet of Hoth in the months prior, with no small effort on their part. 

Kallus and the Spectres had been kept quite busy between trying to find a new base, the assault on the Mako-Ta Space Docks, and of course, taking care of the newborn Spectre 7, Jacen Syndulla. 

Currently, Kallus was watching the child. Or, to correct himself, he was desperately trying to chase him through Echo base without letting anyone important know he was out and about. 

Jacen had developed a fascination with flashy buttons and levers with only his mother _the pilot_ to blame. 

Unfortunately, it made him a threat to the base, because who knew what trouble this kid would get himself into if left unattended. 

Yeah, real hypothetical that was. Kallus frantically looked across the room that he thought he’d left Jacen in before. 

Oh _stars_. What had this boy gotten himself into this time?

He crossed his arms, looking up and down the hallway. You know, you’d _think_ a high level Alliance Intelligence agent would be able to find one, _single_ person on this force-forsaken planet, keep track of one child for five minutes when he went to go get another coat to put on top of his three layers he was already sporting but no. 

Kallus took off in a trot across the frozen blue corridor of the base, looking for any sign, listening for any hint of a giggle or, stars forbid, a power outage because someone pressed the wrong button. 

He turned the corner to the main hangar. Other officers looked on as Kallus tried to play off his frantic entrance as just a routine kind of, well, a routine kind of frantic entrance. He smiled awkwardly. 

A pilot surreptitiously motioned towards the back of the hanger. Kallus tried to nod to thank him, but it came off as just a more tired shake of his head. 

Where have you gone this time Jacen? Like I need more issues on my plate than this.

He’d only taken the babysitting job because Zeb and Rex had already pitched in their time and Zeb had made those “oh you better help with this or I _will_ make fun of you later for it” faces. And he was a kid! How difficult could that be? 

As Kallus wove his way to the back of the hangar, he was faced with the level of difficulty. It was high. Very high. 

Jacen Syndulla was climbing towards the cockpit of one of the older Y-Wing fighters, intent on pressing the orange flashing “ignition” key.

Kallus’s eyes grew wide under the long hair that flew over his face. 

“Jacen! You come down here at once!”

Jacen looked up, just as Kallus spotted someone in the shadows under the Y-Wing. Someone all too familiar. 

“Ah, Hera! How, what are you doing,” he gritted his teeth and looked back to Jacen, “ _down here_?” Kallus shifted uncomfortably, giving her his best false smile. Jacen shifted back to his hunt for the orange button. Kallus tried to motion him to get down with his pointer finger, but Jacen just did the motion back, miming pushing a button. 

Hera came out of the shadow of the Y-Wing fully, toolkit in tow. 

“Oh, you know, just making sure that these oldies here can still take flight in this -60 degree heat. The temperature really does a number on the fuel cells.” She looked at him inquisitively.

“Of course! The fuel cells. Don’t tell me they’re all filled up right now? That’d freeze the fuel?” Kallus faked a smile again and tried to mime to Jacen again to get down, this time swatting at the air near his head. Jacen just tugged at his bright green hair. 

Hera laughed.

“Our fuel isn’t a _liquid_ , Kallus. They’re solid state drives now, per the last update we made to them. They’re all filled up and ready to go, in fact.”

Kallus grimaced.

“How wonderful that we could upgrade that to _come here!_ ” 

Hera shrugged and folded her arms. 

“Say, Kallus, aren’t you supposed to be watching Jacen today?”

Kallus leaned against a nearby Y-Wing. 

“Ah, no, well, Zeb and I-” Kallus’s eyes went wide as the Y-Wing in front of him made the tell-tale whine of its start up sequence. 

“That’s Jacen isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

They both turned around, just as the ship stopped humming, and started powering down. A confused Kallus stopped halfway up the ladder to see two great purple arms pulling the child out of the pilot seat.

“Ah! Zeb! Great timing-”

“-Ah yeah, I was just doing my part of babysitting today, _right_ Kal?”

“Yes, of course, your shift today, watching Jacen. In the hangar.”

The lasat slid down the front of the ship, landing near Hera with the mischievous little child. 

“Now Jacen, you have to remember that you can only fly ships when you’ve got your mama with you, alright?”

Jacen nodded, opting to try to pull his mother’s pant leg back towards the ship. 

Kallus let out a sigh of relief. 

Hera shook her head at the boys. 

Zeb turned to him. 

“This better not happen on your shift tomorrow, Kallus.”

“Tomorrow? But-” Ah. That was the game Zeb was playing.

“-Right, we switched shifts, didn’t we Kal?”

“Of course, Zeb. Of course.” He hid his face in his hand to try to cover the amount of red that he’d managed to turn. 

“Well, Kallus, you might have to end up switching with Rex then. I’ve heard General Airen Cracken’s got a scouting mission set up for the next couple of rotations that he’s looking to put you two on.”

“Aw, Hera, don’t tell me we’ve got to go outside the base? It’s freezing out there!”

“At least you’ve got a built-in fur coat,” Kallus retorted back. 

“The fact of the matter is that we’re gaining more and more people for the rebellion every day, and we need more space to house them. It’s just a quick scout out of some cave systems, you’ll be fine.”

“Oh yeah, because we’ve got a _great_ track record of getting stuck in icy caves together.”

Kallus smiled defensively.

“We do! I managed not to kill you last time. I can’t guarantee it this time of course but-”

“-Hey!”

“But you know, worse comes to worse I hear Lasats are very tasty.”

“Boys, boys, please. Just go get the info from Dodonna.”

Zeb smirked down at Kallus. 

“Alright Hera. See you around.” He waved back at her, just as the Y-Wing started up behind them again. 

Hera’s eyes grew wide as she turned back to try to intercept her son from stealing the ship. 

___

“We could have landed on so many other outer-rim planets, so many others! Atanu! The desert planet!” Kallus shook his head as the snow and wind swirled around the two of them. 

“You know, I hate to say it but this is far worse than Bahryn. At least there we had a working heat source!” Zeb smacked his hand against the side of the generator, trying to give it a bit more life. It had sputtered out about five minutes into their 15 minute walk. It gave a small spark of heat, and then gave out with a whoosh of steam. 

“The cave is just up there. We’ll be able to repair it once we get inside.”

“Oh we’d better.”

The entrance of the cave was just visible through the blizzard snows. Kallus held his hand up in front of his eyes trying to get a better view. They stumbled forward in the snow, reaching the mouth of the cave. Icicles dripped from the outside as they fell into the dryer ice and high walls that blocked out the snow. 

“No one ever bothered to mention to me that snow could get you this wet.” Zeb took off his cap and brushed off the top where snow had begun to accumulate. “Can’t hear nothing with this covering my ears like this.”

“Well, it’s certainly better than the alternative.”

“Yeah, that much is alright.” He set down the power generator to try to get a better look at it. 

Kallus took the time to grab the flashlight and datapad from his backpack, scanning the walls to see if they’d be fit to support an expansion out here. 

The light flashed green, indicating that the walls were quite sturdy. Kallus smiled and continued down the length of the cave.

“Hey Kal, wait up! I’m almost done over here!”

“I won’t be far, Zeb! Don’t worry.”

His flashlight shone across strong supports towards the back of the cave as well. The walls were strangely unnatural. They had almost no marking, no scoring that would indicate they were created by animals, but they were very strong. He stopped at an intersection between two paths to wait for Zeb. 

There seemed to be a noise coming from the right path. A low breeze of air maybe? Kallus knew that there was a native species here, the Tauntans, but it didn’t sound like them. 

His ears returned to the present when Zeb ran from the entrance to meet him. 

“Hey. Got it working. Should be warmer now.”

He held out the lamp. Kallus raised his hands up to the warmth. 

“That’s much better. Let’s keep going.” He gestured with his head deeper into the cave. 

Zeb flicked his ears back. 

“There’s something down there, I think.” 

“Yes. I heard it too.”

“Surprised you could hear that with those tiny things, eh.”

He reached up to Kallus’s ear, almost to feel how small it was. 

Kallus had grown used to Zeb’s more physical contact over the past few months, but that didn’t cause any less electricity running through his heart. 

He hadn’t had an easy go about it, but being within the Rebellion’s more open mindset had definitely helped. And seeing the crew’s reaction to Jacen and all, while a bit unbelievable to him at first, cemented his level of caution around the lasat as _unnecessary_. 

Kallus smiled back up at Zeb and shook his head away. 

“Keep that up and I won’t be able to hear anything else.” He turned forward to the dark, icy walls. “Let’s keep going.”

The tunnel kept going, till it became clear that they were walking along the edge of two larger crystalline structures that merged together near the top. 

“General Cracken’s never gonna believe this one.” Zeb’s voice echoed across the cave.

They came to the edge of the crystal in front of them, and Kallus squeezed through an opening between two in the side. 

Zeb opted to go up the side before swinging around, claiming that there was no way he’d fit there if Kallus barely could. 

He stifled a laugh as they continued down the icy pathway. 

The crystals seemed to be thinning out at this point, and the air seemed to be getting warmer, and quite a bit heavier. 

In the distance, Kallus spotted an almost circular structure with the crystals around it.

“Look at that.” He pointed over to the side.

“Wonder what that could be.”

“This is a very strange cave system for sure.” 

The air grew thicker with the humidity as they approved the odd column shaped crystalline structure. Suddenly, a noise bubbled up from inside, and Kallus just managed to peak through one of the holes on the side in time to see a rush of hot water pass through a small hole in the ground.

“It’s a geyser, Zeb.” Kallus’s voice held the awe of a child seeing a ship for the first time.

“Hey, gimme a look at it.” Zeb nosed past him, sticking his head just close enough to Kallus where he could feel the hairs of his beard tickling his neck. He tried to hold himself very still to take in the moment. The geyser died down to a trickle. 

Kallus looked up to Zeb. 

“I’m going in there.” His eyes twinkled with curiosity. Zeb shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“I guess I'll find a way up there.” 

Kallus walked around the outside of the crystal structure, finding a spot where he could just squeeze through. Once inside, the steam clouded around him, water droplets fell nicely across his brow and outer coat. He pushed his hair out of his face. The rebels could absolutely use this as a heating source as opposed to their spotty electricity. 

Kallus took a breath in, warm for the first time since arriving here.

He started to absentmindedly wonder where Zeb had climbed off to, when he was greeted with a huge thud over by the side of the geyser.

“Zeb!” Kallus was met with a groan that echoed through the outcropping. He ran over to where he thought he’d hear the sound from. He found Zeb sprawled out on the floor, obviously having fallen from higher up. 

“It’s actually- it’s quite a bit higher than it looks, actually.” He rolled over onto his back.   
Kallus smiled and knelt down next to him.

“You fool of a lasat.” 

Zeb smiled back up at him. 

“Come on then Captain, let me help you up.” Kallus reached out a hand to help drag him onto his feet. 

Zeb grabbed it, and again, even beneath the gloves he was wearing, he felt the intense electricity between them. Kallus looked down as Zeb was brought up above him. 

“It really is a nice sorta geyser.” 

Kallus looked up to follow the steam up from the floor to the ceiling, where it vented out to the cold Hoth air. Small snowflakes condensated into the clearing where they stood. Kallus almost didn’t notice that he was still holding the other man’s hand in his. 

“Yes, Zeb, it’s gorgeous isn’t it?” He was almost whispering, following the paths of the snow across the cave, down the steam of the geyser, only to land in the hair across Zeb’s cheek. Kallus lightly raised his hand to brush it away, running his hand against Zeb’s chin in the process. 

“It’s still got nothing on you.” Zeb leaned into the touch from his hand. 

Every other time they’d been like this, Kallus had held himself back. There was always something, a call he had to attend to, people that could see them, even sometimes just his inner self telling him that he was human, how could he ever love a lasat. 

This was different today though. Kallus couldn’t put his finger on why, maybe it was the weight of so many experiences, maybe it was the way that the rebels took care of Jacen despite his heritage. Maybe it was the way that Zeb was looking at him, wondering if he’d follow through this time. 

It could’ve been any of that, or none of it. 

Kallus leaned forward, following his hand that had traced the snowflakes away, and kissed Zeb slowly, carefully at first. He closed his eyes, taking in the sweetness, the emotion of it all. The world stopped turning, and everything centered on the man before him. They pulled back slightly to look at each other, to smile. He held his forehead to Zeb’s in an attempt to breathe between kisses, while Zeb took his lead, rubbing the side of his head against Kallus’s neck. 

Kallus titled his head back, catching Zeb’s mouth again from the side. He reached up with his left hand to hold his face in his hands to pause, looking at him. 

“Ya know, I kinda was beginning to wonder if you were _ever_ going to catch on, Kal.” 

Kallus gave him a slow blink in response, grinning. 

“Yes, I’ll admit I was wondering that too. Just had to allow myself to catch on I suppose.”  
Zeb brought their faces together again, hugging him close with his arms at Kallus’s back. 

After a few more short, ragged breathed kisses, Zeb titled down his neck again. 

Kallus started thinking with his head a bit more tightened down again. 

“What do you think people will say when we go back? Do you- do you think we can even…” He trailed off. 

Zeb stopped, bringing himself back up to face him.

“What do you mean Kal?”

“Well if we’re- I mean if you want to, be, well, together that is-”

“Oh I’m sure there will be so many exchanged credits, and far more bets won than lost, come’on Kal you know what happened when Sabine and Ketsu-”

“Well I mean, they were both human.” Kallus’s admission seemed to make the air in the cavern just a bit colder. 

“So that’s what you’ve been concerned with? All this time?” Zeb was, he was smiling? Kallus shot him a confused look. 

“You know, I knew falling for an ex-imperial had its drawbacks but I didn’t know you were blind as well.” He twirled a finger through Kallus’s hair. “Before the Empire came around tooting their ‘preservation of ideals’ and all no one cared. Loving creatures outside your species was fine, expected even. Empire just really got it in on you, huh Kallus?” He leaned down to softly rub his cheeks again.

Kallus just brought his head to Zeb’s chest, holding him there tightly. Zeb brought his hands up to fix the collar of his jacket. 

They stood like that for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to wookieepedia for telling me that hoth has crystalline ice geysers. catch me outside writing a fix-it fic where the rebels use geothermal heating instead of trying (and quite often, failing) to power their base with electricity. smh


	29. Endor

“Admiral, we’re in position. All wings accounted for.” Hera’s call cut through the palpable tension on the Ghost. 

Admiral Ackbar responded on the crackly airway to the squadrons assembled. 

“Proceed with the countdown. All groups assume attack coordinates.”

Hera punched in the coordinates, Chopper gave a confirming beep, and Zeb held his thumb up. 

“We’re all good Captain!”

Hera nodded and turned to her comm. 

“Phoenix Squadron, prepare to jump into hyperspace on my mark.”

The comm had a burst of static before confirming her squad’s locations. 

“We’re standing by, Captain Syndulla.”

Hera eased forward on the throttle, the stars turned to streaks, and the Ghost and its crew were off. This time, they’d be on the offensive. They’d managed to get the plans for a second Death Star the Empire was building, but this time it was stationary, still being built, surrounded by an anchored shield on the forest moon of Endor. An advance team had already been sent down to dispatch that, with Commander Rex in tow.

It would be their job to take out the Death Star instead. Or rather, to protect the crew that would. The Ghost and Phoenix squadron were particularly assigned to keep the TIE fighters off the Rebellion’s main cruiser. Kallus looked over to Zeb. 

“We’d better get settled then.” 

Zeb stood from his seat behind Hera and stretched out. 

“Oh, I suppose.”

Kallus smiled at him and opened the door to the back bay, lifting his arms to stretch. 

“I’m getting far too old for these large scale battles, Zeb. Honestly, I can’t see how Rex does it.”

“Well, he was technically retired for a few years there. Must’ve really added on to his life span.”

“Imagine that. Retirement. We’ll be lucky if we even make it through the rest of today, honestly.”

Zeb laughed and smiled back at Kallus. 

“We’ll make it Kal. I promise.”

Kallus leaned into the lasat to hug him, grabbing at the fur that just managed to poke out from his shoulders. 

Zeb leaned down to rub his face on each side of Kallus’s neck, pausing once he reached the front of his face. Kallus leaned over to kiss him the humanoid way, lightly this time. The three kisses had become sort of a tradition between them, two the Lasat way, and the final one in the middle his way. 

They separated after, still holding hands in the middle of the ship. 

“You better not get any more kill shots than I can.”

“On your life, Kal. I’ve got the experience here, no way I lose.”

“Yes, but I’ve got the training on things like these.”

“Oh yeah, Imperial marksmanship, sure Kallus. You ever seen a stormtrooper hit a shot?”

They both laughed as Kallus looked down. 

“Come on Zeb, like you’ve never seen a rebel miss.”

“Aye, we don’t when it counts.”

Kallus mimed a shove at Zeb. 

“Well then, I’ll be seeing you after the battle.”

“Of course! I’ve always wanted to get to see Endor at some point.”

Yeah, Endor would be nice. Small little forest planet, hopefully no Imperial presence after this, enough local wildlife to keep things interesting. Maybe Kallus could rest after this, take the time in to breathe, just get to be around Zeb without having to worry about trying to keep him alive. 

They broke apart, heading for their turrets just as the Ghost dropped out of hyperspace.   
Hera’s voice crackled over the comm system. 

“All wings report in”

The Phoenix squad pilots sounded off one by one. 

Hera’s voice then came over the intercom, clearer than the system before. 

“You boys ready out there?”

“Aye, Hera, we’re ready to crush these Imperial tin cans!”

Even when Kallus was apart from Zeb, he still managed to make him smile. 

“Right turret is ready, Hera.”

Chopper let out a string of clucks from the front gun. 

Jacen babbled something incomprehensible from the co-pilot seat. 

“Alright Ghost, let’s get a move on then.”

Yes. Let’s get a move on. 

Kallus couldn’t see much of where they were going from the right flank of the ship, but watched as the pilots began to lock their s-foils in position from Hera’s command. 

Admiral Ackbar’s voice echoed once more through their cabin. 

“May the force be with us.”

The ship hummed closer to its target. There was some comm chatter about the seeming lack of the shield. Rex must’ve really had their team on top of things down there. Something didn’t add up though. The team hadn’t reported in that the shield was down or anything, so maybe the Empire had taken it down? But why would they do that unless they’d… Unless they had known that they were coming. 

Kallus quickly grabbed his comm. 

“Break off the attack. The shield is still up.”

“I get no reading, are you sure?” Hera sounded confused, as did Chopper, who confirmed his musings. 

Calls echoed in from the other squadrons. 

“We’ve got ships coming in at point-three-seven!”

They’d been set up. 

“It’s a trap!” Ackbar’s proclamation rang out over every comm on every squadron. 

“We need to keep those TIEs off the main freighter just until Commander Rex and the rest of the strike team can get that shield down.”

“Incoming at point-four!” 

“I’ve got it!”

Hera rolled the ship over, darting in and out of the larger rebellion ships. Zeb managed to get a shot off at the TIE, but they were vastly overwhelmed. 

“They’d better be getting that shield down soon!” 

Zeb voiced the concern they all held trying to fire on the vast swaths of TIEs. The Empire might not have the best shot percentage, but they certainly made up for it in the sheer numbers they put out. 

Kallus shot down two fighters, only to have four more on their tail. 

The ship bobbed and weaved across the surface of their main ship. It so far hadn’t sustained much damage, but if the Empire kept up with this, it wouldn’t be for long. 

Just as the crew began to breathe a sigh of relief between waves, a green light beamed out of the Death Star and hit one of their ships. 

The comms went wild. 

“That thing is-”

“-it’s operational! The Death St-”

“Pull out! We need to save-”

“-can’t abandon the mission! Keep going!”

Kallus’s hands began to ice over through his veins. They could just turn and leave at this point. 

And leave the fleet behind? And let the Empire win this battle? They couldn’t let this battle get out of hand. The rebellion needed this now. 

They couldn’t just leave Rex on Endor with the rest of the strike team. They needed to count on them. Buy them time, and when it came, destroy this thing once and for all.   
The crackle of the channels had died down, when suddenly, a single clear voice spoke up. 

“So I’m guessing the Death Star fired and all. Was it pretty? I was really on the wrong side for it here.”

“More like just a big green laser bolt. You didn’t miss much.”

“Well, you boys are in for a much bigger show coming up. Shields just went down, according to our readings. Must've caught them off guard when they fired.” 

Chopper buzzed a low reply. 

“ _There_ we go then!” Zeb shouted into the system loud enough that Kallus could almost hear him through the walls of the ship. His targeting computer locked onto an incoming TIE. 

Mission first. Celebrate later. 

Come on, we’ve just got a few more steps in this plan, we’re too far under it now. 

Hera pulled the ship back up and around the freighter they were defending, just in time for Kallus to see two ships disappear into the depths of the second Death Star. 

It was merely a second before he tuned himself back into the din of the battle, pulling his turret around with Hera’s motions, falling into the rhythm between them. Shouts rang out in the comm system as pilots disappeared into clouds of flame from the blaster hits. 

One A-Wing pilot lost control of his ship, shouting out on the comm system. Kallus couldn’t see his exact trajectory, but heard a slew of pilots trying to get him to pull up, while the admirals argued for him to stay the course. His feral yell was met with the buzzing static of an explosion. Kallus looked around for an explosion, a sign of the lost A-Wing pilot, but was met with the darkness of space. 

“Looks like he hit the Super Star Destroyer right on! It’s falling out- Hera! Are you guys seein’ this?”

Zeb’s tone told Kallus enough of the scene, and the ripple of the explosion told him the rest. What he didn’t expect was-

“-It’s coming abroad now it- it looks like it’s going to hit-”

Zeb fell quiet as a boom rattled across the rhythm of the battle. 

Hera twisted the Ghost to avoid a TIE’s blasts, and Kallus caught sight of the scene.   
The Super Star Destroyer had fallen out of orbit around the Death Star; straight into the station itself. Gravity kept pulling the sprawling ship closer to the center, effectively shooting itself in the foot. 

If the mission to destroy the main reactor didn’t pan out, Kallus figured this would cause enough damage to put this station out of rotation for a while. 

The TIE fighters seemed to be falling back now. 

A call echoed around the comm system. 

“Alright, the main reactor’s been hit, let’s get out of the blast range Phoenix Squadron!”

The ship banked again, pulling around to the side. Kallus pointed his turret back around to watch closely as the explosion started to pull apart the metal and fastenings of the station. 

Suddenly, it pulled inwards slightly, and then in a raucous blast, it exploded outwards in a shower of white and orange sparks. 

The Ghost shifted slightly, absorbing the strong shock wave of the explosion. 

There was a moment of silence before the cheering broke out. 

And then, shouts began to holler over every channel Kallus was tuned into. 

He sat, mouth open, still taking in the view of the blast. 

A giddy smile came over him. 

They’d managed to _actually_ do it. 

Telltale signs of someone walking to the turret opening behind him cut him out of his wonder. He turned around to find Zeb staring out the clear windows, hand on the back of his chair. 

Kallus managed to break their astounded silence. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it.”

Zeb stood next to him still, making no move to break his awe. 

“Well, I suppose you did end up with the better view of it anyways.”

He smiled down to Kallus, who looked up to mirror it. Zeb brought his hand down to muss up Kallus’s hair, who leaned into it, looking at Zeb with an expression that coupled the excitement, anxiety, and melancholy of the battle all into one. He caught Zeb’s hand near his cheek, and stood up, facing him. 

Zeb had one of those cheeky grins across his face, like the one he’d had the times they’d spent chasing Chopper across the base for a stolen part, or they’d secretly taken the last two cups of caf in the morning, or they’d spared Jacen from stealing all of the base’s hidden intel. 

He tilted his head into Zeb’s, closing his eyes, taking in the emotion, just as Hera approached from the back. 

“Boys!”

Zeb and Kallus quickly disentangled, Zeb tripping over the floor controls, and Kallus turning a shade much closer to the red of a Zabarak. 

“Save it for Endor, alright? I need you in the cockpit while we go pick up Rex.”

She smiled. 

“Aye, of course, Hera.” 

Kallus silently thanked Zeb for being able to think up a response here, before laughing it off together. 

___

The Ghost could barely land, the platform on Endor was so filled with life. Those teddy bear kind of locals all ran about, swinging across the trees and frankly, getting in the way everywhere. Rebels tried to clear them as more ships set down from the battle to pick up their crew, but more ships just ended up staying to enjoy the atmosphere that was being enjoyed across the galaxy. 

The crew of the Ghost carefully wandered down the ramp, listening to the cheers as they rang out across the platform. The crew joined in the hollars and hand waving, smiles abound. 

They spotted Rex from across the yard, and quickly weaved their way over to his position, with much pushing and parting of the crowd. 

Over the roar of excited conversation, Kallus could only make out a few of his words, but he got the idea. 

The Emperor and Darth Vader had been aboard the Death Star when it exploded. The war was coming to an end. 

We won. 

Rex clapped Kallus on the shoulder and leaned into his ear.

“Much different than last time, eh?”

Kallus could only nod, and turn his head over to look at Rex with admiration. 

“Much different.”

Rex shook his shoulder slightly, and turned back to the crowd, heading over to celebrate with his strike team. Kallus shook his head, and looked back up towards Hera and Zeb, who were talking to some of the other rebel leaders who had come down to the surface.

Just as he looked over, Zeb looked back to make eye contact, and reached out his hand, inviting him to the conversation. 

Kallus took it, holding eye contact, as he stepped under the comforting arm of the lasat.  
As the sun went down across the trees, food was spread out beneath the trees as the night’s party took off. 

The lighting of the funeral pyres burned as brightly as the setting sun as Kallus meandered his way over to a familiar silhouette while Zeb went to go find some drinks.

Rex sat next to a younger boy in front of a fire that was currently consuming the form of the once Darth Vader. Kallus’s breath caught in his throat. He’d known that Vader was dead, he just didn’t assume he’d ever see him again, especially in such an honorable position. He hung by the tree at the edge of the clearing. 

“-father was a brave man, and daring General. We were a team in the Clone Wars, and I trusted him with my life.”

“Thank you, Commander Rex.” 

With that, the young boy stood and left, presumably to find other business to attend to.

Kallus approached Rex from behind.

“You… knew him?”

Rex turned to face him. 

“Enough.” His eyes cast downwards. “Anakin Skywalker had been dead for ages, consumed by this… Darth Vader. But in the end, he found the right side that he needed to be on. The Emperor is dead because of his actions.”

He turned back to gaze into the fire. Kallus followed his gaze, watching the flames flicker across the helmet of the person that had tormented Imperials for so long. 

“He will be remembered by what he chose to be in the end, Rex. Your version of Skywalker is who lives on.”

Rex shook his head. 

“He’s a relic now. A legend that we pass on. It’s our job to keep it that way.”

Kallus smiled. 

“You’d make a great storyteller yourself, my friend.”

“Sure beats a life of being a soldier.”

“There’s nothing more to fight now. You could go back to Seelos and die alone with Wolffe, but I think you can do more good here.”

“I know I can.”

Kallus took a breath in of the smoke and flame. Steps behind him brought him back to the echo of the ongoing party. The sun had set well beyond the horizon, and the sound of drums began to ring out across the clearing. Apparently the local wildlife had struck up some sort of band to celebrate while the rebels partied through the night. Kallus scanned the crowd behind him, watching as Rex gradually got up and to start dancing. 

Kallus leaned back against the bark of the nearby tree, turning his back to the pyre, searching the crowd for those tell-tale purple ears. 

He was surprised to find them only a few feet away, coming closer with some electric blue drink in one hand, and a slightly yellow one in the other. Kallus waved him over. 

“Didn’t know what you’d want so I uh, I grabbed two at random and whatever you don’t want I guess I’ll take.” Zeb smiled and offered up both of the glasses from his hands. 

Kallus apprehensively took the less obtusely colored drink from Zeb’s hand, and turned back to the swirling on the center of the platform. 

A few minutes later, Zeb had managed to drag him into the middle of it, world centering on him, losing track of everything else beneath. 

Kallus watched as Zeb’s ears swayed, as his striped arms kept him steady, as their eyes stayed locked. 

This is to all the times I was so afraid of losing you that I did too much work for missions, only to have you improvise something I couldn’t think of.

Here’s to all the times I near begged you to stay back on the base because the mission was too dangerous.

Finally, here's to all the times I refused to look at you because you reminded me too much of the people I’d looked at with love before, and lost. 

Here’s to you, Zeb. 

Kallus let out a breath, and closed his eyes, leaning forward into Zeb’s lips. 

“You know, I love you.”

Zeb shook his head. 

“I love you too Kallus.”


	30. Lira San

The night on Endor flew on, while Zeb and Kallus sat to the side under the cover of night. 

They were tired, dreary, but they were taking it all in. All their effort had culminated to this, finally. 

At some point, Kallus’s jacket had gotten left somewhere and now Zeb was taking the opportunity to trace out the striped scars across his arms. It was something they’d been surprised they had in common. 

People still danced in front of them, hollering out cries that they’d been afraid of doing for so long. Kallus scanned his eyes across the all-too-human crowd. 

Zeb heard him shift against his shoulder.

“Hey” Zeb scooted over to face him. “What’s bothering you, Kal?”

Kallus shook his head, opting to further bury it in Zeb’s chest than talk about his emotions. 

“It’s nothing.”

Zeb shouldered Kallus out of his hibernation, supporting him by the shoulders. 

He gave him a look. Kallus conceded. 

“The Empire might have heaved its final sigh, but their mark still remains on the entire galaxy. We all have things we have to recover from.”

Zeb searched his face.

“So you’re still thinking about Lasan?”

“How could I not be? Your people would be celebrating along with us if not for me.”

Zeb’s ears flicked down as he sighed and turned forward to face the ongoing party. 

“Remind me in the morning that there’s somewhere we have to go after all this.”

Kallus resumed his original position, laying his arm across Zeb’s belly. 

“Of course, dear.”

___

Long purple shadows met the clear pink of the morning sky when everyone groggily shifted awake from the night’s festivities. Humid dew hung in the air as tired rebels shifted awake from the night before.

Zeb and Kallus found their way through headaches behind their eyes to the Ghost, where everyone else had managed to end up last night.

Chopper buzzed an all too loud scolding remark. 

Zeb waved him off aggressively. Kallus quickly fired up the caf machine while Zeb sought out Hera to “talk to her about gettin’ one of those big ships.”

The sweet earthy smell brought life back into the main area of the ship, dragging out Rex from his room, and eventually, Hera and Zeb from the captain’s seat. 

Kallus saw Jacen poke a head out from the cockpit, and mischievously disappear back behind the door. He shook his head and sighed. That child would be a handful even without the Rebellion around. 

The sun filtered into the communal area, rosey and new over the moon of Endor. Kallus handed Zeb his cup before passing the rest of the pot out to the crew. 

“To the first day of the rest of them.” He raised his glass informally to the crew of the ship before taking a sip of the scalding hot liquid. 

“Speakin’ of the rest of them,” Zeb set down his cup to fold his arms, “we’re headed out on a trip today.”

Kallus took a sip from his mug. 

“Yes, back to Hoth? Or are we establishing a more centralized base now-”

“-Kal, not for the Rebellion. For you.” He brought his hand up to his neck. “I mean of course, only if you’d like to that is-”

“Of course, Zeb. Where to?”

Zeb turned back to him with a grin.

“You’ll see when we get there.”

___

Apparently, getting there required one of the bigger escort frigates from the fleet, packed with enough supplies that Kallus figured Zeb had secretly tricked him into throwing him on some boring supply run while Intelligence got to find the Rebels a new base. Well, the Alliance now. Were they Rebels anymore even? The system the Rebellion was built on attacking had crumbled. They were just a group of people now. 

The Nebulon-B Frigate was a large ship by all means, but managed to be more confusing than the huge Star Destroyers that Kallus had grown accustomed to living on. There were no harsh corners here, only bends and twists across a bent hull. 

Hand in hand with Zeb, they strode aboard the ship, wishing Hera and Rex well along the process of surrender. 

Kallus trusted them to make the right choices for the governing body, and in time, he would do his own part. But that was not his place right now. His place was, well, his place was currently wherever Zeb was taking him. He couldn’t let his work get in the way of that, at any cost. Honestly, he managed fairly well to not care what they thought about that. 

As the frigate took off, Kallus watched from the bridge with Zeb standing next to him, trying to discreetly punch in the coordinates for wherever they were going. 

The trees leaned back around them with the force of the liftoff, swaying with the breeze they created. The ground became smaller and smaller, until it was part of a great green arc beneath them, which was met with the wide expanse of space above them. Kallus turned to watch the stars before they stretched out and the world turned into the blue of hyperspace. 

He turned to Zeb, who was watching him take it all in. 

“So, are you going to tell me where we’re headed off to yet?”

Zeb smiled.

“No.”

“How long are we in hyperspace for?”

“About five hours here.”

“So we’re headed for Wild Space then?"

Zeb crossed his arms.

“No… well, yes, but! No!” He smiled. “Maybe. Maybe we are. I don’t know.”

Kallus smiled, and then laughed with Zeb’s attempts to cover up an obvious truth. He began to walk around Zeb, trailing his hand across him. 

“What could we possibly be doing in Wild Space with all these supplies, dear?”

Zeb tried to protest, looking over his shoulder. Kallus cut him off. 

“I know the Chiss are out here, but if you’d found that man, Ezra would certainly be with him.” 

Zeb shook his head, catching Kallus’s hands in his own.

“You talk too much.”

He pulled him in for a kiss, there on the bridge of the frigate, in front of the crew and everyone, and Kallus didn’t care. He kissed him back, and shook his head.

“Fine. I will give you five hours where I do not think about where we are headed. Not a minute more though, Zeb.” He gave a smile back up at him. 

Zeb leaned down, rubbing his neck on the side of Kallus’s face. 

“Oh believe me, I can give you something else to think about.”

___

They pulled out of their first jump to a field of yellow and orange, visible to the eye from the top command deck. Kallus turned to Zeb as they walked up the stairs and across the room. 

“Is this-”

“The Star Cluster where we mysteriously disappeared into that one time you were chasin’ us?” Zeb looked across to Kallus as they walked up to the large front windows. “No. Not at all.”

Kallus shook his head. 

“I’d always wondered… how you’d managed to get through.”

Zeb gave a slight chuckle. 

“Well now, you get to find out, eh? Hera charted this system a while back, actually.”

Zeb pulled up coordinates on the datapad next to him, and they were off again, the space around them turning into a rainbow of colors.

Kallus stared open mouthed as the large ship flew through the space anomaly, skirting around formations, jumping past holes in the maze through space. 

Finally, he felt the ship lurch to a stop, overlooking a view of a cream colored planet with a moon orbiting it. The scene was incredibly peaceful.

“... Where are we, Zeb?”

The lasat just stood there, taking in the tranquility of the jump. 

“Ah. Forgot. You wouldn’t know just from looking. Ah, well, just hold on a sec for our guests?” He strode out into the corridor, presumably to meet their… guests. 

Kallus squinted out over the planet. What people could Zeb have hidden there?

Just as answers began to form in his brain, a large purple figure appeared behind him, and laid a hand across his eyes. Turning around and lifting the hand, Kallus was met by two other lasat, staring at him. 

So Zeb is not the last. 

I- I did not destroy their people.

They live on. 

And they are… Welcoming me?

Zeb laid a hand on Kallus’s shoulder, indicating to the other two who they were, and that Kallus was to be recognized as one of them. 

I didn’t destroy them. There are more, they are rebuilding. 

And although he later would be able to explain that rush of emotions, Kallus, for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, felt tears begin to well under his eyes. 

The frigate lowered down into the atmosphere, away from the mists of the star cluster.  
As they flew over the planet, it was almost too much for Kallus. Everywhere there were signs of a growing society. The houses, the murmur of life. It was all here. 

The ship touched down with much grandeur, and was greeted by a series of Lasat, all wanting to meet the Rebels that had liberated the galaxy. Kallus and Zeb disembarked together. The pair walked up to the new honor guard, greeting them with curt bows.  
“Garazeb Orrelios. It is an honor to have you here with us as we build our society.” The older lasat held his fist and palm together, greeting him with honor. Zeb returned the gesture. 

“The honor is all mine captain.” He smiled a toothy grin. “In all honesty though, it really is great to see all of you working to get this whole thing together.” He brought his hand up to the back of his neck as the guard turned his attention to the man at his side.  
“And who are you? It’s not common to have a humanoid visitor here on Lira San these days.”

Kallus took a deep breath and looked up at Zeb. He didn’t suppose it was common.  
But the question threw him for reasons he couldn’t explain. Who was he to be here? Who was he to live among these people? Who was he to come through so much fire, to drive through the life he led? Ashla, he had fought his way through so much.

I am not the man you last saw here on the homeworld of the Lasats. I am no longer who that was. I am who I chose to be, I am who I chose to put myself around. His gaze lingered on Zeb for a second, and then shifted back to the guardsman. He smiled and took Zeb’s hand in his.

He thought back to the times he’d introduced himself, and truly meant it as an extension of who he wanted to be. 

He took a breath.

“My name is Alexsandr. Call me Alex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 302 Google Doc pages, 72k words, and a month later.... this brings us to a close.  
> Thanks for reading and sticking with it. I haven't really written anything of this scale before, barring of course that I haven't really ever posted anything here, so thanks to everyone who has commented, supported, and kudosed through this.  
> Originally this was only a pet project, something I was writing that only I'd ever read, so the amount of support I've received has been incredible. Thank you all for this wonderful ride 🤍


End file.
